NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 to be $450 not $600?

How much would you pay for NVIDIA's stonking Fermi-based GeForce GTX 480 video card?  Early estimates pegged the high-performing cards at around €600 or $600 for the single-GPU 480 model, but new figures leaked to Fudzilla suggest a somewhat more reasonable figure: they've heard €450 including tax when the cards come to Europe.

Considering the usual conversion in hardware like this involves simply flipping the €-sign for a $-sign, that would mean a GeForce GTX 480 for $450.  That's the recommended price from NVIDIA, of course; strong demand could see retailers inflate that a little, and there's room for a more expensive version with dual-cores launching in the next few months.

Meanwhile, while we've previously heard talk of card shortages at launch, Fudzilla's sources reckon NVIDIA will have plenty of Fermi-based video cards to out come March 27th.  $450 would make the GTX 480 more expensive than the ATI Radeon HD 5870, but by nowhere near the factor some predictions initially suggested.