ATI, graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices, on Friday said it had slashed price of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics card and said that at least one online store will have them available for end-users at $199 price-point for 512MB graphics card.

“The price of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 is dropping and we expect that the 512MB and 1GB boards should be available on Newegg today for around $199 and $239 respectively, offering and even more compelling value,” a spokesperson for ATI/AMD said.

At $199 price-point the ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB graphics card becomes the top-performing performance-mainstream option on the market. Earlier AMD sold ATI Radeon HD 4850 at this price-point.

ATI is working hard to capture 50% of the market of standalone desktop graphics adapters. One of the ways to gain market share is to slash prices of final products. In Q3 2008 Nvidia Corp. commanded 60% of shipments with its GeForce chips, whereas ATI Radeon’s share was about 40%, according to market tracker Jon Peddie Research.

It should be noted that sales of ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB for $199 in a single online store in the USA can hardly change the game worldwide and allow ATI to boost its presence on the market considerably. Nevertheless, customers should keep an eye on various deals in other regions as well as ATI has just given a sign that it plans to offer its high-performance products at discount prices in the current environment of the economy on the globe.

Tags: AMD, ATI, Radeon