We already reported that ATI is going to ship DirectX 11 capable graphic cards this year, but German magazine heise revealed today that according to some well-informed internal sources ATI is planning to ship their first cards supporting DirectX 11 as early as late July or early August.

Should this rumor be true, it would put Nvidia under quite some pressure, as they are planning to ship their first GPUs with DirectX 11 support not before October. More than just likely, ATI's new chips are going to feature 40 nanometer manufacturing which will further reduce heat dissipation, while increasing performance at the same time.

Currently, it is still unclear though whether these new cards will be based on the RV870 chipset, but if so, this would put ATI in a very good position to steal the performance crown from Nvidia - at least until Nvidia's GT300 series hit the market.