Scott Wasson of the Tech Report has a bit of an editorial on the price gouging on vendors and the new ATI video cards.  It turns out, it may not completely be the vendors fault after all…
The moral of the story, it seems to me, is clear: ATI’s second set of lower pricing numbers for the X800 and X800 XL was essentially incorrect. In reality, in the market, the 16-pipe Radeon X800 XL competes with the 16-pipe GeForce 6800 GT. The 12-pipe Radeon X800 competes with the 12-pipe GeForce 6800, and the Radeon X700 Pro competes with the GeForce 6600 GT. Armed with this knowledge, you can compare performance for yourself.