ATI has decided to give Nvidia a run for its money, as the new driver really turns the tables around to the GTX 260's advantage. GTX 260 is now faster than Radeon 4870, and since they were both in the same or similar price range, ATI has decided to loosen up some of its price weight.

American Newegg is selling Radeon HD 4870 512MB from Sapphire for $189.99 with a mail in rebate, $199.99 regularly, while the cheapest Radeon HD 4870 1GB card costs $224.99, again with rebate. This makes ATI's offering even more attractive at this pre-Xmas shopping madness price and it will definitely attract a few more birds to its nest. The 1GB Radeon HD 4870 normally sells for $239.99.

Nvidia has a new driver and the soon-to-be-launched PhysX-enabled driver that might further help get some additional focus on Nvidia products. Overall, the second part of 2008 was dominated by ATI, with some signs of recovery for Nvidia.

You can get the 4870 512MB for $189.99 here, or a 4870 with 1GB of memory for $224.99 here.