NVIDIA's GT200 series has had quite a rough ride since its introduction several months ago. First of all, it failed to hold its ground against ATI's RV770 based products. The GeForce GTX 260 with 192 shaders was slower than a Radeon HD 4870, while the GeForce GTX 280 couldn't match the performance of ATI's dual GPU based Radeon HD 4870 X2. Apart from less than stellar performance, there was the question of the rather high price. And just weeks after launch NVIDIA dropped prices significantly, but a bitter taste still remained, especially if you were one of the early adopters. In the meantime some things have changed for the better with NVIDIA stepping up for a new battle ahead. - FudZilla

EVGA e-GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 SSC Card Review

An improved version of the GeForce GTX 260 was introduced, featuring 216 cores instead of 192 on the original design, and more importantly GT200 prices have dropped significantly and ATI's price to performance lead has been compromised. The latest good news for NVIDIA comes in the form of a driver, the ForceWare 180.47 and this is what we'll be playing around with today. Ttoday we're letting it loose against ATI, namely the Gainward Radeon HD 4870 Golden Sample with 1GB of memory to be exact. Though NVIDIA's honor was defended by EVGA's overclocked e-GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 SSC edition and a reference card.

It has to be said that Gainward's board is feature packed compared to NVIDIA's cards, as it boasts HDMI and DisplayPort. However, Gainward's card is also a bit pricier than a plain Radeon HD 4870, but it's overclocked and features those useful connectors which are often forgotten for the sake of achieving a marginally lower retail price. We tested the new driver with the hottest holiday games out there, at least according to NVIDIA that is. The holiday shopping spree hasn't started yet, and it seems NVIDIA has done a good job getting ready for it. And it stands quite a good chance of standing up to ATI in this market segment.

And this really thanks to the ForceWare 180.47 drivers which have significantly boosted the performance of the GT200 based cards and some rather aggressive pricing on NVIDIA's part. Even with current pricing NVIDIA stands a good chance against ATI, which wasn't the case just a couple of months ago. The cheapest GeForce GTX 260 cards with 216 cores sells for just under $250, while ATI's cheapest Radeon HD 4870 sells for $225. That would be the difference somehow related to pricing, although it depends a bit from the retailer as well. And in the end, if NVIDIA is now beating the Radeon HD 4870 why can't it be higher priced?

In all fairness, both are a good deal, but NVIDIA just got a bit better and if it manages to cut prices soon, ATI will be in trouble. It's worth mentioning that ATI will have some new drivers of its own in the second week of December but we are not sure if this driver can change the odd's to NVIDIA's advantage.