Price Guides October 2003: Video Cards
by Kristopher Kubicki and Howard Johnson on October 18, 2003 9:17 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Hopefully, we don’t have to get into a habit of taking a full week just to look at video card prices. Unfortunately with the 20+ different product lines between ATI and NVIDIA, following video cards takes a bit of energy. Let us also not forget about our friends XGI, who supposedly have quite a bit of backing from the Tier I motherboard/video card manufacturers. But that’s another thing we don’t know and can’t talk about.
Narrowing down what to buy is never the easy part. Right now ATI is laughing all the way to the bank. Our midrange video pick of the week is the 9600 Pro, at under $150. Quite naturally if NVIDIA gets their DX9 act together and can regain some of the ground lost, we would consider the GeForce FX cards a bit differently. But if you had to buy a midrange card now, right now, Radeon 9600 Pro is the way to go; even if the 9600 XT is available.
On the high end market, it’s a bit easier to call ATI the better choice, but it comes down to which card. The 9800 XT is clearly not the best option, at $500+. The Radeon 9800 non pro would typically be our choice, but it’s almost impossible to find; and the Radeon 9800 SE is kind of a sucker card with no advantage over the 9600 Pro. We still like the 9700 Pro a tad more than the 9800 Pro, mostly because of the $80 price difference. However, 9800’s are certainly dropping in price and it will only be a matter of time before the 9800 is our pick of the week. This, of course, is assuming it doesn’t get any competition from NVIDIA.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
28 Comments
View All Comments
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
"9600 XT will be shipping with the single player version of Half Life 2"I take it the 9600XT is not coming out for a loooong time then?
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
Newegg seems to have the 9800np in stock, and several buyers say they've flashed successfully to pro. Can anyone confirm doing this and point to a site with instructions? Thanks. :-)scavio - Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - link
Another...http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112727,0...
scavio - Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - link
Seems others disagree and say it will be multiplayer...http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?se...
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - link
here are the requested links from tomshardware that the version of half-life 2 that comes bundled with the 9800xt/9600xt might be only the single player game >>http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030930/rade...http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030930/rade...
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - link
am i mad to buy a 9800 xt i am asking because i can still cancel order and buy a 9800pro insteadAnonymous User - Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - link
Is there a recommendation for a "TV" card too, like an A-I-W? Christmas is coming up, so recommendations would be helpful (jingle-bells, jingle-bells, here's my Amazon.com wish list ...)I thought it a reasonably even-handed review, with only the HL2 price to consider. Maybe you could add a column estimating value of included s/ware?
Oh, and #5 is just a sour-puss.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - link
#15, can you confirm that the version of HL2 bundled with the XT's will only be single player? If so, give us a link to that page...Pete - Monday, October 20, 2003 - link
Ah yes, and I see #13 already mentioned that. Cheers if you edit the article to include that quite salient fact. :)Pete - Monday, October 20, 2003 - link
Kris, you really should mention that the $50 premium a 9600XT commands over a 9600 Pro includes a copy of HL2, and that the XT's 25% faster core will likely translate into 25% faster performance, as HL2 in DX9 mode seems to be shader-bound.