Nvidia will price its Geforce GTX 260 at $399 with a strong possibility of dropping it even further. At the same time ATI will position its Radeon HD 4870 at $329, as this will bring ATI to the desired price / performance level. GTX 260 should be a bit faster, but it will, at the same time, cost more.

The original plan was to price RV770XT closer to $229, but we believe ATI wants to probe the market and that RV770XT ended up faster compared to GT200 than people would have expected.

If Nvidia drops the GTX 260 prices to $329 or close to that ATI can definitely go lower with the price and still make some money.

This definitely means that at some point you will be able to buy the RV770XT-based card at close to $200, but this might take a month or two.

Overall, we believe that this will be a great buy for the money but $399 GTX 260 looks like an attractive offering.