Drunkenmaster, your pirces are wrong.
Not sure where you have seen a hd 5850 for £200 and what gtx 470 is £350, is it the highest priced one you could find. Cheapest I have seen in the uk is about £299, cheapest hd 5850 i can find is about £220.
The gtx 470 doesn't cost 75% more than an hd 5850, only in your 'slightly' amd biased mind.
I bought a 5850 for £193 a week after launch, I almost bought a second for crossfire at £195 last week, they can be found quite easily, as others have said recently someone did a sale on the 5870 for £250 a couple weeks ago and I've seen other here suggest someone is selling them for £270 though I've not seen that myself.
As for the cheapest 470gtx, well, i'll let you judge.
But keep in mind how many stores had a very cheap 5850 listed at £190-200 for months, that would never come in stock, while ones listed at a higher price did. Or how a Sapphire stock would be £200 and never appear, but a "new" say, COD version would appear at £240 around the place in stock.
Just because there are some pre-orders at £320, doesn't actually mean they'll either come in at that price, or that anything more than the very first shipment will be that price. The average price is pretty much £350, thats the price the majority are priced at, that suggests to me the others are "teaser" cards. So everyone pre-orders a £299 or £320 one, and when the others come in stock those that can't wait change theirs to a different card for a little more, its not a new practice at all.
Even if we change the pricing because I'm biased, £200(which I can see them in stock for today) versus the very best case scenario of £300, is a 50% price increase for a basically identical performing card.
Overclock the 470gtx by 10%, overclock the 5850 by 20%(the lowest I've seen) or by 35%(1012.5Mhz core, I've seen several) or anything inbetween, the 470gtx becomes even worse value.
This is ignoring the load temps, and noise, at stock on a 470gtx which is significantly worse than a 5850, can you imagine the load temps and noise when you overclock it even further, considering load temps were 93-96C across the reviews, and the thermal throttling is at 105C and you have no idea how they tested that card(most reviewers test out of cases for simplicity, changing dozens of parts every single day gets tiresome in a case), its just not looking good any which way you cut it.
IF it turns out the 99% of 470gtx's are sold at £350, well to be fair, the majority of people buying 5850's are paying over £200 aswell, though thats more stupidity than anything. Theres only been around a month since launch you couldn't hunt around and get one very very close to £200.
Then again, supply is going to be worse, so the price gouging on 470gtx's WILL be higher than the 5850's due to lack of supply. The saving grace maybe in keeping prices in check is if prices get out of control, who on earth would pay £400 for a 470gtx when you can get 2x5850.
