Price Guides, February 2005: Video Cards
by Kristopher Kubicki on February 19, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
AGP High End
Unfortunately, even though we now have many options on the PCIe platform, current generation Radeons still have a few weeks before they begin to saturate the AGP market. Thus, X800 Pros slated for gradual replacement by the X800XLs are still way overpriced. The lowest prices on Radeon X800 Pro remained in the high $300s [RTPE: Radeon X800 Pro AGP], while the extremely prolific AGP GeForce 6800GTs continued to mop up the realistic high end AGP market with cards as low as $340 [RTPE: GeForce 6800GT AGP]. It's been a while since we looked at AGP 6800GT cards, and drivers have changed quite a bit since then. We did recently look at the PCIe counterpart in our X800XL preview and in our original X850 launch coverage.However, the real nail on the coffin for the X800 Pro are the benchmarks that we posted back in November detailing the GeForce 6600GT. There's no mistake about it, the GeForce 6800GT is the best performer in the high end AGP sector, and the only way that that will possibly change is if the Radeon X800XL can beat it in price in the next couple weeks.
PNY surprised us this week with a GeForce 6800GT [RTPE: VCG6800GAPB] priced considerably lower than anyone else on the market.
The X800 Pro moved very slightly over the last month, particularly the Sapphire X800 Pro [RTPE: Sapphire Radeon X800 Pro 256MB AGP]. Given the fact that the X800 XL is expected to stabilize at the $299 price point, we would have to expect the X800 Pro to fall at least to that level or lower before it gets phased out. Unlike NVIDIA video cards, ATI video cards have fallen historically in price before hitting complete EOL; although, with the recent paper launches, we would be open to the thought that ATI has changed their marketing strategies a bit in the last few months. A $250 Radeon X800 Pro would be an outstanding buy, but we wouldn't be surprised if ATI simply pulls the cards out of availability before they get anywhere near the $300 price point.
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bigpow - Sunday, February 20, 2005 - link
Wait a sec.[quote]XFX dominates the 6600GT AGP landscape, and without a doubt, the card [RTPE: PVT43AND] remains our AGP mid-range pick.
[/quote]
I thought AT recommended Leadtek 6600GT PCI-E on a previous comparison test?
Which one is it? XFX or Leadtek?
ShizNet - Sunday, February 20, 2005 - link
AGAIN - all details are behind us (quality/image/expandability)what is reason to purchase $400+ vidCard? one reason - to play GAMES (pc) - you don't need this beast for e-mail
OR you can buy xCube/gStatioin/pBox (any puns are welcome) - pay same ~$50 for same game
AND get same pleasures out of building/shooting/conquering
going back to the start:
does all this HardWare advances are OVERRATED? - because they won't last for a year
i won't even touch HERE what you can do w/ lil mod to those xStations/pBoxes
and i am NOT a fan of M$ or Sony, just a fan of story: 'little train that could'
semo - Sunday, February 20, 2005 - link
#19doom 3 is not playable on p4 1.8 with a radeon 7500
have to get a geforce ti i guess
KristopherKubicki - Saturday, February 19, 2005 - link
ShizNet: I would first look at who is taking a year to rewrite games from console to PC. Obviously MS has a vested interest in keeping Halo on the XBOX before putting it on PC. It's not that its fundamentally really hard to do, but my guess is it's licensing and politicking that keep releases on the console.As for the hardware argument - given the same PC hardware I would not be surprised if many of thsoe same games look/feel identical. I think your argument is moot because 1.) CounterStrike is definitely not a benchmark of performance/quality for PC or XBOX and 2.) San Andreas will hit PC and XBOX at the same time. And I bet you it'll continue to look better on the PC anyway. I really haven't seen a single title on XBOX that was better than the same title on PC with the exception of the purposely crippled Halo.
Kristopher
ChineseDemocracyGNR - Saturday, February 19, 2005 - link
Actually Doom3 is playable in a Pentium 4 1.5GHz with a GeForce MX 400.You can't have both an outdated PC and good quality image settings, you gotta pick one.
ShizNet - Saturday, February 19, 2005 - link
i'm not arguing here the quality of the image or the way the business runs (at loss or gain)LOOK deep into issue on hand - xBox (hardWare/softWare) is 2 yr-old and it still can 'catch up' w/ brandNew-hingEnd PCs. try to run 2 yr-old pc -- HL2 @ ~20 fps and doom3 @ ~10 (if at all)
while xBox chopping away @ Halo, CS, not to mention SanAndreas and others
don't you think there is someThing wrong with this picture?
KristopherKubicki - Saturday, February 19, 2005 - link
PrinceGaz: Many (most?) new Xbox games have 1080i or 720p capability.But yeah, the XBOX is sold on a loss just for people to buy games. And believe me even on HD, games on my XBOX look like garbage compared to my PC :)
Kristopher
ShizNet - Saturday, February 19, 2005 - link
#13is it your answer? or is it your 'MAYBE'?
do you even know how code is written? first you write the way it should be, then you 'optimize' it to hardware (of your choice ati/nVidia/other)
so you telling me it's easier to write for 2 yr-old nVidia (dx 8.x) than for dx 9.x APIs? there are no lowLevel coding in vidGames anyMore. if you haven't heard games are based on engines (APIs): doom, source (halfLife2)... same s**t for console or pc.. and drivers are provided/adjusted by ati/nvidia, not the other way around
with your idea about 640x480 - plug your HIGH-end pc card in the same TV and see the quality of image and tell me about AA/AF
go put that P from your - :P - where it should be
PrinceGaz - Saturday, February 19, 2005 - link
The X-Box normally runs at 640x480, which is all a standard TV set can take (and may be slightly blurry at such a "high" resolution if it isn't a good quality TV).As with all consoles though, the reason why the X-Box is cheap is really because it was sold for less than the manufacturing cost, as the real money is made from consoles with game sales and every X-Box game sold netted Microsoft a good few dollars.
ChineseDemocracyGNR - Saturday, February 19, 2005 - link
KristopherKubicki,sorry for the off-topic, but did AnandTech also test K8T890 boards? So far only two are available (from ASUS and Soltek), but from what I gathered the ABIT, Gigabyte and Albatron boards should be out real soon.