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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  • cryptonomicon - Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - link

    neat stuff.

    hard to decide between 6600GT and 9800pro as it just dropped in price. i'll have to do some benchmark comparisons against price ratios.
  • semo - Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - link

    yep

    €428 = $553 according to this site: www.xe.com/ucc/
  • KristopherKubicki - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link

    patrick0: I am not 100% sure of the exchange rate, but I know the USD against the Euro is not favorable. €428 is definitely more than $459.

    Kristopher
  • EODetroit - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link

    Its a shame about Newegg, they used to allow negative reviews. I remember shopping for a DVD burner back when they were new and expensive, and people who write stuff like "This burner sucks, avoid it at all costs! Newegg rocks, they got it to me in 2 days, but don't buy this burner, it sucks!". Those reviews were really helpful. But now you don't see anything negative so you can't trust the reviews any more :(. I still shop at Newegg all the time but I don't recommend them to all my friends like I used to 'cause of this.
  • junyor22 - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link

    On page 4 they mention a 256MB 6600GT offering from MSI...
    The link actualy goes to a 128MB version of this card and looking at MSI's website
    http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_list.asp?clas...

    They don't offer this card. Only a 256MB AGP 6600 (non GT)

  • patrick0 - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link

    Forget about the $70-$120, that's what alcohol is doing :)

    Still the X850XT PE is about $40 cheaper.
  • patrick0 - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link

    I really don't understand why you always compare prices of these expensive stores.

    A Radeon X850XT for $460, I can buy one for €378 (GeCube) or €385 (PowerColor)
    Radeon X850XT PE for $459, I can buy one for €428

    Even if you have to pay international shipment, over $70-$120 diference will make up for that.

    I suppose you can buy in the USA for these prices as well. For those who care, these are prices of a store in Barcelona (Spain)
  • Phiro - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link

    Hey, where's the regular 6600's? Don't they fill the gap between the $180 6600GT and the $100 6200?
  • Souka - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link

    Pretty useless article.... my opinion... nuff said.
  • intellon - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link

    I'm a student and I have a P4-2.8GHz 533FSB with 512mb RDRAM and an AGP 9700 pro AND it's a Dell!!!(please spare the bashing)
    now strictly economically, should I bother to replace 9700pro with a X800XL or a BFG-6800GT OC (Both can be had for $500 here in Canada) or should I dump the dell and build my own PCI-e rig?
    Note: Money matters. So need the total cost to be minimum in the end.

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