Price Guide, December 2005: Video Cards
by Haider Farhan on December 9, 2005 7:11 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Mid-Range Graphics
Moving on to the mid-range cards, the Sapphire Radeon X800GTO2 256MB [RTPE: 100130] is going for about $220. That's about a $30 decrease since our last video card price guide. Currently, it has become quite difficult to be able to find a Connect3D X800GTO that will unlock to an X850. You would be taking a big chance going with that card, if you had in mind that you would be able to unlock it like before. Meanwhile, for $170 shipped, the PowerColor Radeon X800GTO 256MB with VIVO [RTPE: X800GTO256MBDDR3] is a difficult deal to pass up.
As the GeForce 6800 GS cards have become more popular, the prices have also shot up. At the moment, the eVGA GeForce 6800GS 256MB [RTPE: 256-P2-N386] is the best deal, going for $207.00 shipped. Other's having shot up considerably higher, all the way up to $300! The 6800 GS is definitely one of the cards to consider this holiday season, but only if the price is right: $300 puts it in the same league as the 7800 GT.
Looking at the 6600 GT front, we have the XFX GeForce 6600GT (AGP) 128MB [RTPE: PV-T43A-ND] leading the pack, going for an even $130 after a $20 MIR. This is about as much as we would recommend spending on AGP card, given that few if any motherboards will support it in the future.
For you PCI-E users, the Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 128MB [RTPE: GV-NX66T128D] is on sale for $122 shipped. There are a few others which are coming in close behind, like the Chaintech [RTPE: SE6600G-128] at $128, the XFX [RTPE: PV-T43G-ND] for $117 after MIR and the eVGA [RTPE: 128-P2-N368] for $110 after MIR. All of which are well under $130, so for the less demanding gamers these are great buys.
The X700 and X700 Pro are decent mid-range cards, although the 6600 and 6600 GT are generally considered better. For about $100, the Sapphire Radeon X700 128MB [RTPE: 100121SR] is an okay buy. The same goes for the Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro 128MB [RTPE: 100595], which is currently selling for $122.
The X1600XT has just recently hit the market and is currently being listed at only one vendor. From PowerColor, the Radeon X1600XT 256MB [RTPE: R53C-TVD3] is going for about $180. We're likely to see more of these cards to reach other retailers later this week. Given the performance preview, they're really not looking too interesting, but at least they're retailing below MSRP. As long as you can get a 6800 GS for around $200 - or the X800 GTO for $180 - X1600 is in something of a difficult spot.
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bbomb - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
God ATI's X800 line of cards is a mess. You have the X800, X800Pro, X800XT, X800XL, X800GTO, and the X800GTO2. I would have recommended an ATI card to my brother-in-law but with ATI having so many version of one core I just told him to get a 7800GT. I myself will switch from my X800 to Nvidia on my next purchase because ATI has made buying one of their cards a great big confusing mess. Pretty soon Anand will need a price guide just for ATI cards to help us sort out all of their crap.At least with Nvidia they dont have 6 version of one chip.
RandomFool - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
ATI and Nvidia both have too many card with similar names.JarredWalton - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
I don't mind the similar names... it's the stuff like 7800 GTX 256MB vs. 7800 GTX 512MB. No other card (that I'm aware of) has such a huge discrepancy in clock speed between cards that apparently only differ in the amount of RAM. Imagine:AMD Athlon 64 GTX 512K = 2.0 GHz with DDR400 support
AMD Athlon 64 GTX 1024K = 2.8 GHz with DDR600 support
That's about what we have right now with the two GTX cards.
Tanclearas - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
6800, 6800GS, 6800XT, 6800GT, 6800 UltraGranted, that is only five (versus six), but I'd hardly say that's much better.
Live - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
Add the 6800LE to that list and you got the magic number. ;)PrinceGaz - Saturday, December 10, 2005 - link
You can add the X800GT to ATI's X800 range making seven in total.JarredWalton - Saturday, December 10, 2005 - link
Actually, ATI is far worse. We missed several. In approximate order of power:X800 SE
X800
X800 GT
X800GTO
X800GTO2
X800Pro
X800XL
X800XT
X800XTPE
And don't forget:
X850Pro
X850XT
X850XTPE
Tanclearas - Saturday, December 10, 2005 - link
If you're going to include the Phantom Edition, then do not forget the 6800 Ultra Extreme. Once again, ATI is still worse, but not what I would call "far worse".Recommending an X850 wouldn't be as bad as recommending either an X800 or 6800. I believe that is why it was not included in this thread. Imagine telling someone to get an X800GT (not that you would, but just imagine). They go to the store without having X800GT written down. Was is GT? GTO? XT? Now imagine the same situation with the 6800GT. Was is GT? GS? XT?
It boggles my mind that ATI and Nvidia believe that such a huge range of cards is necessary. They already have three model levels (X300, X600, X800 and 6200, 6600, 6800 looking at the last generation), so why do they need to have 3+ levels in each of those categories? They could really simplify things with three model levels, and limiting each to two (or at MOST three) levels.
JarredWalton - Monday, December 12, 2005 - link
You do have to cut NVIDIA a bit of slack with the 6800 GS. They get to stop production of the more expensive 6800 GT and Ultra, since they drop to 12 physical pipelines and 110 nm. The X850 didn't really change anything from the X800; it was just a tweaked process and manufacturing release.Ideally, it would be nice to see no more than two or three low-end, midrange, and high-end cards from each company, with model names that make it clear what you're getting. It's sad when you can point to Intel and AMD names as being better. :p
RandomFool - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
I'd really like to see a summary page on these things with a final recommendation for high, mid and low end systems. Something like: I"n the mid range area, the ATI-Nvidia Geforce X7800 GTO is nice."