Price Guides, April 2005: Video Cards
by Kristopher Kubicki on April 23, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
GPU High End
Last month, we were excited to announce that the X800, X850XT and X800XL were showing on store shelves. Of course, we were originally promised a December/January ship date instead of a February/March ship date, but this is just business as usual for those of us accustomed to the hardware world. This month, the same cards from last month are on retail shelves, but now, in easy-to-upgrade AGP form. However, recommending a third generation Radeon X series repackaged into an AGP form is a difficult proposition for us. Although you may have upgraded your motherboard and CPU in the past, an AGP Radeon X800 only makes sense for those who have spent a lot of money on a relatively recent nForce3 or K8T800 setup, but only need to upgrade the graphics card now. A socket 462 based solution really would benefit more from a CPU/motherboard upgrade than from a high end GPU upgrade, although some overclockers among the crowd will always beg to differ. Further, considering that the X800 AGP cards carry a $30 premium over their PCIe brethren, we can't justify the extra cost. nForce4 boards are very easy to get under $100 for Socket 754 and Socket 939 [RTPE: nForce4]. By the way, if you really want an AGP video card, an ASUS 6800 GT might be the better way to go, but more on that in a second.Since March, the Sapphire X800 256MB [RTPE: 100107] fell almost $50, certainly impressive considering that we were promised an actual $250 MSRP on this product. Sapphire's X800XL 256MB [RTPE: 100105] also fell to the $299 MSRP, which was certainly welcomed as well. Take a look at how both of these products have behaved over the last three months.
Sapphire X800 256MB
Sapphire X800XL 256MB
We alluded to an LeadTek GeForce 6800 GT [RTPE: A400 GT TDH] earlier, and if you fall in that specific high-end AGP market, there really aren't many effective options. For those looking for the benchmark numbers, take a quick look at our benchmark summary from a few months ago. When talking about AGP video cards, these aren't apples-to-apples comparisons because of the bridge chips, but for all intents and purposes, there will not be much difference between those benchmarks and the AGP variants. Going the 6800GT route saves you $20 or so if you go with the 128MB version on AGP.
A bit of competition in this field would be nice. As we mentioned earlier, the bout for PCIe high end cards certainly go to ATI.
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MJA - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
newegg.com new site looks cool on my dell widescreen 2005WPFKristopherKubicki - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
Zar0n: You can actually do that: Type in the product here:http://labs.anandtech.com/
Rike: You are correct, I am not sure how that typo made it through the editorial process.
Kristopher
Rike - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
#8 I think it should read: "We were very excited this week to see [the price difference between] AGP and PCIe 6600GT video cards disappear."PrinceGaz - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
On page 4 "We were very excited this week to see AGP and PCIe 6600GT video cards disappear."Was that meant to say something else?
Spacecomber - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
Following up on #4, they really should call them what they are, "testimonials"; they aren't reviews. If you read NewEggs fine print, they as much as say this, but I do feel that NewEgg's continuing to refer to these as "reviews" is misleading.(They also are willing to do a major editing job on a "review", to the point that it almost isn't recognizable, even if you originally wrote it.)
As to the PriceGuide, it seems like the 6800 NU fell through the cracks?
Space
Son of a N00b - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
I read the reviews for little tidbits of info like not including cables or something, but i would never buy anything without reading a review here or somehwere else....btw HATE neweggs new design i go so used to their old one after the past 4 months selecting parts for my next computer and keeping em in my cart or wish list and got very very used to where everything was i could go with my eyes closed...then they changed and my cart and wishlist got deleted and i do not like the flashy colors and things...lol oh well i guess i gotta get used to it and ask newegg for my cart back for my account..if they can......
xsilver - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
#2 --- people come to AT price guides to drool :P#4 its called "marketing" .... what a review telling you the product is crap and not to buy it, why would they print that???
toyota - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
i like newegg but i dont trust a lot of their reviews. i have tried leaving reviews that were not positive but they would never post them. i even tried to post a consructive review on an Asus video card stating that it was not really a 6600gt and they wouldnt post it. i emailed them asking why they would not post some of my reviews and they replied with "we have to approve the reviews". that does not make a whole lot of sense to me considering some of the reviews i have read there. they will always post a review with a 5 egg rating no matter how stupid it is. some product reviews are from people who never even bought the product.Zar0n - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
It would be really nice if we could see those neet price graphics for any hardware part.What about a “Price graphic“ link next to “check prices” :D
Zebo - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
LOL gotta a kick out of this:"For whatever reason, we always seem to catch some flak from our readers if we don't mention the ultra unaffordable high end stuff. We would never buy this stuff in a million years, and it would be very silly for us to recommend any of it (these are price guides, aren't they?)"