ATI Technologies earlier this year quietly started to supply its RADEON X550 visual processing unit and now seems to be gearing up for one more quiet product launch in the performance-mainstream segment. The company’s RADEON X800 GT will be positioned as a solution in the price-range between $150 and $200, according to a number of web-sites.

ATI RADEON X800 GT graphics product already exists in engineering samples, one of which was obtained by HKEPC web-site. The graphics card is based on the R480 visual processing unit (VPU) with 8 pixel and 6 vertex pipeline that operates at 470MHz. RADEON X800 GT-based graphics cards may be equipped with 128MB, 256MB or 512MB of memory that has 256-bit interface and functions at up to 980MHz.

Earlier the least powerful product in the RADEON X800 family was the RADEON X800 SE, which also featured graphics chip with 8 pixel and 6 vertex pipelines, but was clocked at 425MHz.

Given that ATI has not officially launched the RADEON X800 GT, specifications may vary depending on the manufacturer.

The first mentioning of the RADEON X800 GT was published about a year ago, but at that time it was claimed that the RADEON X800 GT will compete against NVIDIA’s $399 offering – the GeForce 6800 GT. The real RADEON X800 GT is positioned as a solution that costs less than $200 and generally targets NVIDIA’s GeForce 6600 GT audience.

It is unclear whether the RADEON X800 GT will be available broadly.

Officials for ATI Technologies did not comment on the news-story.