GPU Ultra High End

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?). However, we do concede that the trends on pricing that these products exhibit are important, since a dip in the ultra enthusiast line will usually correlate with a dip in the high end line.


X850 cards still have not taken off, and for whatever reason, our manufacturers decided that it was better to increase the price on many of the cards over the last few weeks. Whatever the logic, the consumer certainly doesn't win here.


The ultra high end cards have completely stabilized. Like the ATI ultra high end, the better priced GeForce 6800 Ultras increased in price since our last guide. The lowest priced ultra high end, the eVGA GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB [RTPE: 256-A8-N345-AX], stopped all movement around the first of this month and shows no sign of letting up. The graph below illustrates this card's price trends over the last six months.


eVGA GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB

We would like to think that these ultra high end cards will become the next generation value and mid-range cards, but this will not be the case (does anyone remember the GeForce 5950 Ultra?). Partner manufacturers for both ATI and NVIDIA hint that these tall orders are not the workhorses of either camp. Like the Pentium 4 Extreme Editions and the Athlon FX processors, these cards continue to grab a lot more PR than sales.

GPU High End GPU Mid-range
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  • MJA - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link

    newegg.com new site looks cool on my dell widescreen 2005WPF
  • KristopherKubicki - 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?)"

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