NVIDIA Corp. on Monday introduced its highly-discussed GeForce 6800 GS graphics product that brings performance of the GeForce 6800 GT graphics card to performance-mainstream price-points. The immediate availability of the part puts additional pressure on ATI Technologies, who has not yet begin to sell its RADEON X1600 XT to end-users.

“Graphics cards based on GeForce 6800 GS GPUs deliver the 3D eye-candy with the necessary performance for total gaming immersion, but do so at a new, lower price point,” said Ujesh Desai, general manager of desktop graphics processors at NVIDIA.

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS products feature code-named NV42 graphics processor with 12 pixel pipelines and 5 vertex pipelines with working frequency of 425MHz. The boards also feature 1000MHz GDDR3 memory with 256-bit bus providing high-performance in memory bandwidth-dependent cases. Being based on the GeForce 6 micro-architecture, the GeForce 6800 GS features such advanced technologies as Shader Model 3.0, high-dynamic range (HDR) lighting, NVIDIA Scalable Link Interface (SLI) multi-GPU technology as well as a dedicated video processing engine.

The NV42 graphics processor is made using 0.11 micron process technology and should be relatively affordable.

Performance measures by X-bit labs indicate that NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS leaves behind ATI’s RADEON X1600 XT in majority of gaming applications, which mean that the latter should be priced lower to stay competitive.

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS-based graphics cards are available for immediate purchase at approximately $249 from many of the world’s leading add-in card makers, including: Albatron, Chaintech Computer, EVGA, Galaxy, Innovision, Leadtek Research, MSI Computer Corporation, Palit Microsystems, PNY Technologies, Point of View, Prolink, Sparkle Computer, and XFX.

GeForce 6800 GS-based add-in cards are available from major online retailers worldwide and are also powering PCs from the world’s leading system builders.