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 - Sunday, October 19, 2003 - link
#5 Maybe should read some older video card reviews... for instance the Geforce3 review. You could make the exact same arguement there. Anand stated that people who plan on upgrading should wait till fall for the ATI 8500. When it came out, it didnt perform to well because of poor drivers. Despite this, Anand still recommended that people shouldnt purchase a Geforce3 until new ATI drivers were released.I can guarantee that if a new NVIDIA card came out first and an ATI card was right around the corner, youd see the things like "Dont upgrade yet, with ATI's new card around the corner, theres no telling what they'll have in store for us." etc etc. But of course you wouldn't argue that.
Your comments towards Kris (and Anand, as you did in fact mention his name) are completely illogical and very innapropriate. You dont have to throw out baseless accusations that do nothing more than insult the integrity of staff members just because you disagreed with something stated in the review.
Anonymous User - Sunday, October 19, 2003 - link
booyah! :DAnonymous User - Sunday, October 19, 2003 - link
#5: As a proud owner of a 9800 pro, why would you call me a fanboy? To say that we dont know anything about NVIDIA's NV38 is silly, as I even posted links to the benchmarks.As for forum posts, feel free to link to them.
Both of my hardware recommendations were ATI cards. I think your comments are total unsubstantiated.
Cheers,
Kristopher
Anonymous User - Sunday, October 19, 2003 - link
"This, of course, is assuming it doesn’t get any competition from NVIDIA."Was that sentence really needed? Might as well say XGI too because you dont know jack squat about what the geforce 5700, or whatever driver updates, are going to perform like.
Kristopher is a fanboy. Its been heavily talked about on the forums. For someone reason you go out of your way to credit Nvidia. In all the ATI reviews you and Anand say WAIT TO SEE what Nvidia has to counter 6 weeks! from now.
WTF
I bet if ATi goes to market first with the R400 you will not recommend buying one (assuming it does great) because your waiting for Nvidia. And then CONTINUE not to recommend until Nvidia has released their product an entire year later, due to delays. JESUS
Call me an ATI fanboy, i dont care. I am a sad owner of a geforceFX and wish i went the ATi route instead.
Anonymous User - Sunday, October 19, 2003 - link
I'm using a sapphire radeon 9700 non-pro, is there a similiar pro hack for this? I've tried the omega drivers, but its hack doesnt work and i think they just removed it because of it.Anonymous User - Sunday, October 19, 2003 - link
#1, learn how to read, its on the first page.Anonymous User - Saturday, October 18, 2003 - link
#1 Isn't that mentioned on the first page?Anonymous User - Saturday, October 18, 2003 - link
Why not mention the 9800SE->9800 hack?.. oh, I know why. It succeeds less often than the 9500 one and the price boost isn't worth it.
BUT STILL