Radeon HD 4870 X2 Prices Slashed to $449

AMD adopts pricing strategy to fight NVIDIA

As it was to be expected, AMD has reduced the price of its highest-performance graphics card, the dual-GPU Radeon HD 4870 X2, which, up until recently, was the fastest desktop graphics card on the market. The company has slashed the manufacturer's suggested retail price by as much as $100, bringing its price tag to $449, down from $549, which has been effective for approximately five months, since the card was initially launched.

Users will now be able to take advantage of the company's highest-performance graphics solution, for a much improved price point, and that is because of NVIDIA's launch of the new GeForce GTX 295. In addition, the price of the aforementioned card could get as low as $399, if you decide to acquire one from one of ATI's partners, which are offering a $50 mail-in rebate on Newegg.com. This basically makes ATI's dual-GPU graphics monster an ideal upgrade choice for desktop systems.

The new performance king in the graphics market is the GTX 295, freshly released by NVIDIA at the current CES event in Las Vegas, Nevada. This card is expected to provide a significant performance boost in competitive products, but at a price tag of $499, which is basically $200 more than what you will need to pay for ATI's solution to high-performance desktop graphics. This could potentially allow ATI to gain its targeted market share of 50 percent, as PC users are likely to choose its solution over that of NVIDIA.

According to market tracker Jon Peddie Research, the Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA managed to claim a good 60% of the market in the third quarter of last year, whereas ATI's Radeon graphics claimed approximately 40%, a considerable rise over previous figures.

Currently, AMD is expected to be working on a new graphics solution, ready to battle NVIDIA’s latest cards. According to rumors, these new cards should take advantage of a new 40nm manufacturing technology.