ATI plans major price cuts for Radeons
ATI, the graphics division of AMD, is working with its board partners and several major e-tailers to lower prices on some key products. The ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB will drop $50 in price, from the $199 segment down to $149. It will compete in this price point primarily against NVIDIA’s GTS 250 1GB rebrand using the old G92 chip, variants of which were used in the 8800GT, 9800GT, 9800GTX, 9800GTX+, etc. However, the HD 4870 has been shown to surpass the performance of NVIDIA’s GTX 260 line, and value seekers may choose to leave NVIDIA for a better price/performance point.
The Radeon 4870 uses GDDR5 to provide more video memory bandwidth than the GTX260, even though it has more RAM, a wider memory bus, and higher clocked memory. The ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB will drop to $129, and is designed to compete at the same price point as NVIDIA’s GTS 250 512MB version. The Radeon HD 4830 will be replaced by another part soon at a lower price point. ATI’s price cuts are anticipated to take effect early this week. One of our sources indicates that NVIDIA and its partners will unveil GTS250 parts at the CeBit tradeshow in Hannover, Germany on Tuesday.
Source: DailyTech
Comments(42)
Gotta admit since I turned from Nvidia to ATI ive never been happier…
ATI Rule
I agree, I always loved ATI – No Problems -
when i got my first ati x850pro i never looked back now nvidia can eat my dust
ati came out with a macintosh version of the 4870 last night.
hmmm….
timing?
If only AMD could make a chip as fast as my e8600 @ 4.3ghz i'd have an AMD/ATI system
I switched last december from 8800gtx to hd4870 and the difference was almost otherworldly. All games (exception of GTA IV which runs like crap… of course *grins*) literally fly with this card at 1920×1080 resolution, where my old 8800 would choke past 1280×1024. Didn't cost much then and if it will actually be this much cheaper, it would be ideal for ANYONE with a decent machine to upgrade. Only thing that bothers me is that ATI doesn't have PhysX, and that is the only minus I can think of for the whole HD48XX series.
Yeah, yeah… but still… ATI's support (drivers) sucks!!!
@ 7 right
I can't even play GTA IV with my HD 4870, but other games run just fine and with a great FPS.
Not really…. That is just because Nvidia cozy's up to the game manufacturers.
And even with that, ATI still holds its own. The last time I had driver issues was like a month after the 4870 came out and Crysis was having some weird bugs. Can't remember anything other than that to be honest… And I play plenty of modern games.
I buy whichever brand offers a better performance to price ratio at my pricepoint.
At this time, Nvidia is basically spinning its wheels with this whole rebranding crap, trying to cut back the 4800 sales, but it is failing pretty hard.
never had a fast gamingpc until I bought one 2 weeks ago, contains a hd4870(512Mb) and even if it isn't the fastest card out there : it runs Crysis, Far Cry 2, DiRT etc flawless !
I couldn't agree more. If we would have had this conversation 12-18 months ago I would have been shouted down as the antichrist, but now people are starting to see the light.
nVidia isn't a BAD product, but until something changes drastically, I will always go with an ATI / Radeon card.
I was lucky enough to have a pc fail and I ran out and bought an emergency replacement at a warhouse store. they had no nVida cards only ATI, so grudgingly I bought one. That was almost ten years ago. I have since had MANY cards and each one worked beyond my expectations.
The first one STILL works and is currently installed on a computer I built for someone.
High quality.
My only wish is that they would re-issue the media player that used to get bunudled with it's drivers disk; the one with the transparentvideo screen and cueing library. Best media player ever.
from a competition point of view this is great news
Doesn't beat my Core i7 / nVidia GTX285 system. It's just a fact that the nVidia cards are faster at the moment. The 4870×2 can't touch the GTX295, and for single GPUs the GTX285 reigns supreme.
wow bert your a real loser, trying to show off ur noob system. waste more money u fool
how much did ur gtx295 cost 600-700$? do the math with 600$ u can buy 3 of these 4870 cards or 2 4870 x2, and it beats the hell out of ur card. Nvidia groupie
Dammit I just bought the XFX Radeon HD 4830! What exactly does this mean "The Radeon HD 4830 will be replaced by another part soon at a lower price point."?
Will the 4830 be taken of the market or something?
How do you call someone a groupie when they post 1 thing about nvidia and there are 7+ post about ati i have played on 4 or 5 high end ati Pc's all slow and choppy Nvidia FTW sorry you are just fan boys
QTF @ #1 !
@Charles: learn to read, I said I own a GTX285, not a GTX295. And I'm not an nVidia fanboy, I happen to have an ATI mobile GPU in my laptop which performs very well. I'm just voicing something else than all the 'ATI groupies' in here. And you can't argue the facts I presented. ATI isn't bad, the prices are a little better than nVidia (depending on your location), but for raw speed you're better off with nVidia. Anyway, it all depends on your needs and budget. Arguments ftw. Namecalling ftl.
ATI driver support sucks. can't run 4850 Crossfire with newer drivers. still running 8.10 drivers.
Still, happy with my cards.
@ 20 / Bert
If you like to pay more for less then NVIDIA is your choice, if you like value for money then ATI is the clear choice for EVERYONE.
The 4870X2 is plenty for everyone who is not a total GFX-whore, and it gets me pretty sad to see people actually willingly spending money on NVIDIA and their "as long as we can pay to have commercial in games, we'll win"-policy. That's why a lot of people still buy NVIDIA, but ATI should be the clear choice unless you have a NVIDIA card and wants SLI.
Each and every 4*** card beats the living daylight out of the NVIDIA competition in that price range (as in where the card you chose are).
ATI HD4830 is a pretty sweet card if you are a cheapo. Very overclockable. $89
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conclusion
nvidia = fast and expensive => for nerds with nothing else to spend their money on and usually masturbate watching cpu-z
ati = slightly slower and cheap => for people who like to do things in the real world with their money and game in their spare time
I've a Core i7 and GeForce GTX285 too, I'm happy… I had one ATI card in my life, the 9800 PRO 128MB, before that I had a nvidia TNT2 32MB, after the 9800 I had a nvidia FX5200, and after that the 8800GTs 640MB and now the GTX285
I love nvidia and INTEL…
But it's only my taste
I can play every game maxed out at 1680×1050 with great frames, even GTAIV…
CRYSIS is that thing I can't understand, I can't turn on the AA if I want good frames even with this system…
But I'm Happy with nvidia, the best fastest cards now are from nvidia, no doubt…
But when you can't afford to have a high end card from nvidia you have to search for other options (ATI)
@stimpie : You are wrong, well in that you have said maybe for one and another guy that may be true, but I have a i7 with GTX285, because I need… I work alot with photoshop, premiere and after effects, cinema 4D and 3D game studio…
So I need something fast…
and offcourse I like to play games
For me have a great computer is a need…
Let me tell you something about ATI. It's garbage. There's not much more to say other than it's cheaply made low end graphics. And you're a reflection of that if you but their products. That's all I have to say about this.
i rather see the 2gb version price drop
What the hell is ATI HD? "Apparently Taking Incredible Hot Di@k". Fa@@ots!!!!
3DFX ftw!!2. I play Doom sheareware in my spear tyre.
All i can say is lol.
i purchased a 4870 when it first came out, was a great card, but unfortunately there were a few nitpick issues with regards to the drivers (alt+tab is slow [you can google alt+tab ati problem to see more], the card ran at 90 degrees on empty load [yes i know AMD said this is perfectly fine, just a personal nitpick!], and a few other nitpicks as well). So unfortunately i switched to a GTX 260 (also a great card). Every new customer i get in the shop (mostly people who just don't care about the nitpicks), i recommend ATI everytime over Nvidia, because if it wasnt for ATI giving out great hardware at such cheap prices, my GTX 260 woulda costed me $10,000.
One thing that is troublesome for ATi are drivers, and that never changed. The worst of all, almost every LCD monitor, while watching video, has page tearing. And that can be only fixed if you use nVidia CP add program and dedicate Vsync always ON to that program. ATi doesn't have that.
And if nVidia wants to compete with ATi, they definetly have to lower prices.
It's fairly simple. ATI has better budget cards, you get what you pay for(lackluster driver support, and a few issues, but doing a little research, and you can work your way around them to get a good working card – which isn't bad when you're paying a fraction for the competition's stuff). NVidia makes decent cards and good drivers so there's less chance of crap happening at least but at the cost of a higher price. All this fanboy this and that crap is as moronic as choosing sides in politics. Both sides will have their pros and cons and will slander the other side in hopes of getting support. I've used both ATI and NVidia for over a decade and both have had their issues. I'm actually quite neutral and usually will go with what works best on a budget so I may lean to ATI for the future, but right now, I'm using an old 8800 gts.
@20 the 285 is what the 280 should have been but knowing how nvidia is i believe ati was prepared….not a fanboi just prefer ati over nvidia but i have to say my nvidia drivers dont normally give me problems like ati…granted i have a x 4850 setup… but i have noticed that ati systems colors are alot more realistic than nvidia. i do believe that ati was prepared for this because in about a month a 4890 is coming out and the replacement for the 4830/50 the 4860 will be out too.
also when the 260 came out it was $399 and the 280 was about $500…the 4850 was $200 and the 4870 $299/$309. the 4870 gave the 280 a run for its money at just about $200 less and 2 4850s cost $100 less and pummeled the 280…..i hope you guys swearing by nvidia (that bought the 280 at initial release) remember this especially those that bought from manufacturers that didnt offer the difference back once nvidia dropped the price within 3 weeks of its launch due to the ati offerings.
Wow and last week I was .<– that close to buying a Nvidia GTX 260 after being a loyal ATI fan for years because of similar price points and slightly better performance. This will probably make me rethink that.
Every time I try a ATI card, the games never work or i get crashes ingame. Sorry but I have to say NO. nVidia is my choice still, unless the game market goes toward the radeon chipsets and leaves nVidia.
I just need a new video card. Doesn't matter what kind to me.
The one in my 'main' system is only a Nvidia G72 core. That's frickin' old.
For the record, benchmarks show that the GTX 260 Core 216 beats the HD 4870 1GB by a good bit (usually 5-15%). I still think the Core 216 is worth it. The regular GTX 260, which is still about the same performance as the HD 4870 just dropped a bit to $160 after rebate (with a promo code) a week ago on Newegg. It was a steal. Anyways, NVIDIA usually squeezes out more performance with their driver updates (up to 15% most of the time for specific games) and a few games perform much better on NVIDIA cards (Crysis, and most notably, Dead Space). That, paired with the warranties that EVGA or XFX provide make the GTX 260 Core 216 better than the HD 4870 1GB, IMO. The HD 4870 512MB performs a bit below the GTX 260 I believe, and still is at a similar price point.
You're going to get a lot of bang-for-your-buck either way, but I'm still a bit NVIDIA sided (for the GTX 260 Core 216 vs. HD 4870 thing) for the above reasons. See which card is best bundled (warranty, clock speed-although it can be easily manipulated, free games, etc). And yes, I know this IS Rlslog, so I guess you can kind of omit "free games".
running 2 BFG GTX285 1GB OC2s and a 8800GTX for physics…
dream gaming…
crysis on very high dx10 never below 40fps.