With the information supplied by ATI and Nvidia and five months of time having elapsed for the announced products to ship to retail, we went out in the field, confident of spotting a higher-end card somewhere on a shelf. We limited our visits to large electronics and computer chains such as Circuit City, Best Buy, and CompUSA, in the greater Los Angeles and Chicago areas.

We really didn't expect Circuit City to have any high-end cards, but we were still interested in what they might carry. The store caters to the mainstream user and we believed they should have a range a mass market cards available. We left two suburban Chicago stores with lectures from sales staff that neither had Nvidia launched their 6800 Ultra, nor ATI announced their X800 series. Accordingly, neither card ever had reached these stores over the preceding several months. Instead, ATI's 9xxx series or GeForce 5xxx models were recommended to us, both families in the range of $200 and below.

Our local Best Buy stores were the next targets. Again, no X800s, but two Best Buys we visited in the Chicago and Los Angeles areas had ample supplies of BFG-manufactured GeForce 6800 "OC" boxes available. In Chicago, we also found one PCI Express X700 Pro available.

A source at Best Buy went into more detail for us. At the time of inquiry, the company said that no X800 XTs and X800 XT PEs would be available in stores, but would instead have to be ordered through BestBuy.com. At that time, the retailer had no PEs and just 28 XTs in a regional warehouse. The source confirmed that BFG's 6800 OC is the only 6800 version the store will carry for some time; higher-end cards have to be ordered online. But it is noteworthy that both Best Buy and BestBuy.com did not have any Geforce 6800 Ultra cards available nationwide.

Confronted with the same request for a high end X800 or GeForce 6800, a CompUSA sales associate asked us, if we wanted "french fries with that." The store displayed one X800 Pro card in a glass display. A sticky note told us to ask for help to get that card. Surprise, surprise: no card was in stock, according to the sales staff. A check with the local and regional warehouse revealed that no X800 XT or the X800 XT PE cards were available. But GeForce 6800 Ultras could be ordered through the website of the retailer during the time of our visit.