DailyTech - Radeon 4870 Gets $50 Price Cut to $149, Radeon 4850 Will Drop to $129

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Hardware Radeon 4870 Gets $50 Price Cut to $149, Radeon 4850 Will Drop to $129
Thomas Gribble - March 2, 2009 6:49 AM

66 comment(s) - last by SiliconDoc.. on Mar 13 at 5:01 AM

ATI fights NVIDIA's rebranding with better pricing

DailyTech has learned from industry sources that 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.

	GTX 280	ATI Radeon 4870	GTX 260 Core 216	ATI Radeon HD 4850	9800 GTX+
Stream Processors	240	800	216	800	128
Texture Address / Filtering	80 / 80	40	72/72	40	64 / 64
ROPs	32	16	28	16	16
Core Clock	602MHz	750MHz	576MHz	625MHz	738MHz
Memory Clock	1107MHz	900MHz GDDR5 (3600MHz eff)	999MHz	993MHz GDDR3 (1986MHz eff)	1100MHz
Memory Bus Width	512-bit	256-bit	448-bit	256-bit	256-bit
Frame Buffer	1GB	512MB	896MB	512MB	512MB
Transistor Count	1.4B	956M	1.4B	956M	754M
Price Point	$349	$149	$199	$129	$169

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RE: The Price was Fine

By Reclaimer77 on 3/2/2009 10:51:06 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Its called taking advantage of the technology provided.

No it's called inefficient. The per watt performance of these cards is terrible.

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RE: The Price was Fine

By GlassHouse69 on 3/2/2009 11:03:15 AM , Rating: 4

Yes, that is the case.

the 260 216 nvidia card is much better in this category. Only problem is the chips are prone to failure, and the company enjoys ripping people off $$$ wise.

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RE: The Price was Fine

By StevoLincolnite on 3/2/2009 12:28:34 PM , Rating: 2

I think you would find that the flops/per watt ratio would be in favor of a GPU than a CPU, the GPU when it handles a CPU type task (Like Physics etc) completely wipes the floor with a CPU based implementation, especially if the GPU isn't rendering a complex 3D scene.

Still I agree, the power requirements are a little harsh, however there are IGP's/Low end and Mid-range parts for those who are more energy concerned.

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RE: The Price was Fine

By thelostjs on 3/2/2009 12:36:03 PM , Rating: 2

i agree, and furthermore what's happened to nvidias motherboards? especially their igp (for desktop)?

come on folks dont let ati get comfortable their igp has room for improvement. (but you wouldnt know it looking at nvidias offerings)

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RE: The Price was Fine

By erple2 on 3/3/2009 5:34:56 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
No it's called inefficient. The per watt performance of these cards is terrible.

Have you actually thought about what you just said?

If you assume that the performance of the GTX260 core 216 is on par with the 4870 1GB model (which I think it is), then at load, they're both consuming similar (anywhere from within 2% to 10%) the same power. How is that terrible performance per watt?

Or are you suggesting that the GTX260 is also terrible performance per watt? If that's your benchmark, then I offer a solution:

No graphics card.

Seriously. Just turn off the computer. Performance per watt is a stunningly undefined!

Performance at idle? What the heck are you buying this card for if you're comparing performance at idle? Just buy the lowest performing graphics card on the market today for that kind of benchmark.

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