14 DAY TRIAL // By now, most of you have already found out that NVIDIA is currently going through a rough patch, especially as far as the GeForce lineup is concerned. This mostly comes as a direct consequence of the fact that AMD's graphics subsidiary has finally succeed in putting forward a more than interesting product. Even if the RV770 core chip can provide the same graphics performance as NVIDIA's GT200 GPU, it also offers impressive amounts of power at much lower prices.
And this is precisely what has made NVIDIA rethink its strategy. Upon release, the GTX 280 and GTX 260 graphics cards cost around $650 and $400, respectively. This was last month, when everybody was still under the impression that, for said amounts of money, NVIDIA's cards would offer a much better performance than AMD's Radeons. Unfortunately, that was not the case and the green company had to resort to something that it hadn't done in quite a while: cut down prices.
The latest GeForce graphics cards can now be acquired at much lower prices, as it has already been reported a couple of times. In fact, this is undoubtedly one of the best times for a gaming user or a computer enthusiast to upgrade his own desktop rig, as NVIDIA's flagship model now costs around $450, while the mid-range GTX 260 can be found at prices as low $300. Simple math will show anyone that, for the best performance card currently available on the market, this is almost a 30% drop in pricing in just one month.
Even more, it is believed that this is a trend that is here to stay, which means there is talks of NVIDIA slashing yet another $50 off the price of the GTX 280 by the end of next month. This, in turn, can also be easily explained: August is the month when AMD launches its latest Radeon graphics card, one that will become the company's flagship model. Dubbed as "Spartan", this dual-GPU graphics card is poised to put an end to NVIDIA's reign in the high-performance market.