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.
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Anonymous User - Monday, October 20, 2003 - link
both are great cards. you cant go wrong with one of those. but if i had to say which card performs better, id give my vote to the 9800np.Anonymous User - Monday, October 20, 2003 - link
which is the better deal? ati radeon 9800(non-pro) from circuit city for $249 plus tax or e-vga geforce fx 5900(non-ultra) from newegg for $229. which card performs better? although if the 9800 can be converted to a 9800 pro then that would be great!! anybody know of anywhere i can get instructions to flash bios for this ati 9800 card??Anonymous User - Monday, October 20, 2003 - link
#11The ones from Circuit City are the "Built By ATI" versions. I received one with Infineon 3.0ns BGA memory(max 333mhz on paper) :( , but from what I hear it is a 50/50 chance of getting one with Samsung BGA memory. But it is still a nice video card stock. I only OC it when I play games/benchmarks.
Anonymous User - Sunday, October 19, 2003 - link
i read that the version of half-life 2 that comes bundled with the 9600xt or 9800xt will only be the single player game not with multiplayer. something to consider.Anonymous User - Sunday, October 19, 2003 - link
#13: Thats a good point. I didnt think about that.Kristopher
Anonymous User - Sunday, October 19, 2003 - link
"It all depends if your $50 (25% percent of the cost) is worth 4 FPS in UT2K3 (13% percent performance). Nay, $150 is the right price for a midrange video card."think they should have mentioned that $50 of that will be going toward half-life 2 ,and if your looking forward to that , that 9600xt then becomes a $150 card.
sounds like a good deal to me
Anonymous User - Sunday, October 19, 2003 - link
I think the eVGA GeForceFX 5900 128MB deserves to be noted as well, as it offers a lot of performance for its $229, much more than a $ 249 Radeon 9700 pro, that was mentioned as pick of the week in the performance section.Anonymous User - Sunday, October 19, 2003 - link
#10: Yeah. I think they carry the Sapphire ones with the SAmsung BGA right?Kristopher
Anonymous User - Sunday, October 19, 2003 - link
The 9800 non-pros (not the SE version) are available online from Circuit City for $250+free shipping. I would try to get one while they still have them in stock. The Samsung BGA memory is preferred over the Infineon BGA memory if you want to flash the BIOS to a 9800"pro." However, you can still OC them nicely though. Just my two cents.Anonymous User - Sunday, October 19, 2003 - link
I thought the review was very cogent and not at all biased towards one camp or another. #5's comments were completely unfounded.