As some of you probably remember, this past week was not actually the best for the Santa Clara-based graphics manufacturer. In all fairness, one could easily say that it was actually the worst the company has seen this year. For those who are not in the know, this happened because the company's stock shares saw an impressive drop in numbers after it announced the existence of faulty graphics chips for the mobile lineup. People have even suggested that NVIDIA is about to lose its crown to rival AMD, especially as the company's competitor is prepping a new graphics card, which is said to be better than the GTX 280.

That the new Radeon 4870X2 card will probably be much better is not something that only AMD fans hope, since NVIDIA too is also showing signs of joining the consensus. As such, some of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 cards can now be acquired in Europe for €399, while the GTX 260 sells for around €250. Although the €399 price tag isn't as impressive as the $469 or $459 cut prices we told you about last week, it sure makes NVIDIA's current flagship model more attractive to high-end users, especially since this card is currently the best performance offer available on the market.

AMD's Radeon HD 4870 bulk version sells for €220, while the retail boxed cards can even go for €250. This means that NVIDIA's GTX 260 graphics card is the one that the manufacturer is offering as a competitor to AMD's current flagship model, since both of them fall roughly in the same performance and price category.

The lowered prices for the top-performance graphics cards can ultimately only benefit the end user, who will be able to upgrade to the latest graphics cards within the limits of a rather more acceptable budget. As far as NVIDIA's cards are concerned, prices are expected to drop again once AMD unleashes its R700 Radeon 4870 X2 graphics monster, which should take the top-performance crown from NVIDIA.