ATI, graphics business unit of Advanced Micro Devices, on Thursday announced third price-cut on its flagship ATI Radeon HD 4800-series graphics cards this year. The price drop is not really dramatic, but the company hopes that it will be enough to improve competitive position of the product family.

“ATI partners are offering fantastic deals on ATI Radeon HD 4800-class GPUs.  This is great news for gamers contemplating upgrading their current graphics card,” said, Jay Marsden, a spokesperson for ATI/AMD.

From now on, official price of the ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB will be $109, ATI Radeon HD 4850 1GB will be priced at $119, the price of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB will vary between $125 and $175, ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB will be available for $159 and the ATI Radeon HD 4790 1GB will be sold for around $200 and upwards. New recommended pricing was not announced for ATI Radeon HD 4830, 4870 X2 as well as proprietary graphics cards now available widely, such as ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2.

At present U.S. online stores, such as Newegg.com, are beginning to offer the aforementioned graphics cards at the prices noted above. Traditionally, price-cuts will take effect in Europe and Asia several weeks later.

ATI cuts prices on its mainstream lineup in order to respond to the global economic recession as well as to better compete against arch-rival Nvidia Corp. and its mainstream GeForce line.

Tags: ATI, AMD, Radeon, 55nm, RV770