A while back NVIDIA announced the GeForce GTX260 Core 216 to take back the performance segment from AMD and Radeon HD 4870. GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 had another 24 shader processors, adding up to 216, thus the name, but had the same core and memory frequencies as the slightly slower GeForce GTX260. It did put up a better fight against Radeon HD 4870, but whether it actually brought back the crown to NVIDIA or not is something you will have to decide.
If they did, AMD has now reclaimed it with the availability of the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. If not, AMD increased the lead. When we look at the results posted by Anandtech we see that the RV770 core benefits a lot more than we had anticipated from a 1GB memory buffer. At higher resolutions it gains as much as 20%, while other games see barely no increase at all. Overall though it puts Radeon HD 4870 1GB in a safe position in front of GeForce GTX260 Core 216, and still priced better at around $290.
