Everyone likes cheap without cutting down quality. Apparently, ATI is hacking HD4800 prices like a crazed maniac from a slasher movie.
As Nvidia's GTS 250 rebrand peers around the corner, waiting to pounce of consumers, ATI is gearing up for the fight, standing its ground on the graphical front with not only the release of the upcoming Radeon HD 2890, but by slashing the price of its Radeon HD 4800 series. The hacking begins with its Radeon HD 4870 512 MB card, ready for end-user consumption at Newegg and other online retail outlets for $149, a $50 drop from its original price. The price cuts are supposedly taking place this week, just in time for Nvidia's big reveal at CeBIT this week.
From a pricing point of view, the card will mostly compete against Nvidia's GTS 250, rebranded using the existing old GTX 9800+, donning the same $149 pricetag. Consumers seeking better performance for the buck may turn towards ATI's HD 4870, as the card has shown that it even outperforms Nvidia's GTX 260 series. The Radeon HD 4870 card joins the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, previously receiving a drop in price and now selling for $129. Still, at its new price, ATI has positioned the 4850 to compete directly with Nvidia's GTS 250 512 MB card, also offered for $129.
Based on the RV770 chip, the HD 4870 beams with 800 stream processors, a core clocking in at 750 MHz, a memory clock of 900 MHz using GDDR5, and a 256-bit memory bus. In comparison, the GTX 260 offers 216 stream processors, a core clock of 576 MHz, a memory clock of 999 MHz and a 448-bit memory bus.
Other price cuts are expected later down the road although ATI did not offer further details.
