Price Guides, April 2005: Video Cards
by Kristopher Kubicki on April 23, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
What a week it has been for the price guides! Did you get a chance to see the redesigned beta webpage? NewEgg wasn’t the only one to scrap their original beta web design at the last second, apparently! Our working beta was nearing completion until we learned that the price engine code was just a few pixels shy of fitting in the AnandTech standard borders. We played around with some ideas and twisted some graphics around and finally settled on a layout similar to the one that you can see here. After we wade through some of the more cosmetic changes and updates, our guide engine will be finally ready to sit on the main site (we promise this time!).
Speaking of redesigns, NewEgg’s redesign launched just a few days ago. The new design is a little easier on wide screen displays and focuses more on user reviews. In any case, we like the new design, although it is definitely a large change from the old design and an adjustment if you were accustomed to it.
In video card news, X800 XL and X800 video cards are now in the mainstream AGP market and like so many things AGP, our disappointment can hardly be contained. After months of waiting, it looks like our friends at Sapphire were the only ones capable of bringing the AGP X800 XL cards into any sort of competitive pricing with their PCIe counterparts, but with inexpensive nForce4 motherboards and current Intel PCIe motherboards hitting their second iteration, it feels really difficult to give AGP much worth while praise.
We have received word from several motherboard manufacturers that GeForce 6200 Turbo Cache cards are going to start shipping with low end PCIe motherboards. Supposedly, this should help keep production costs down on low end boards as IGP motherboards will not need separate designs for end users. On the other hand, the end user might pay more for the additional packaging/production of the GPU on an external card. We will be following this very closely over the next few quarters.
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semo - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link
it certainly does Kristopherthanks
the issue with x300se running doom3:
had no time to check the settings and i just played the firts 10mins of the game (just shot one worker) and it wasn't choppy. that impressed me because on my 7500 even the main menu was choppy (not talking about walking and jumping just changing control settings). while playing i saw some smoke and it did not look good so there was no eye candy but at least it run ok.
anyway, my friend is now playing painkiller (ragdolls and particles flying all over the screen) and he says there's no slowdown. my 7500 gave up on the 3rd level :( . (see why i'm looking for a radeon 9800)
dripgoss - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link
LOL on the Newegg reviews.. yeah I posted up a very thorough and honest 2/5 "egg testimonial" on an MSI 6600GT and they wouldn't post it. I bumped it up to 5/5 and it went through but when it finally goy posted to the site it came out as "Nice card" verbatim!! And then they turn around and post testimonials from people who either don't own the product or bought it elsewhere! If they hae to approve the reviews before posting, that's funny..spittledip - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
My apologies! I am used to scoping out all the prices almost daily through pricewatch, and they always have 9800 SEs listed as pros. That is one sweet sweet deal!LoneWolf15 - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
I think there's an important thing to mention regarding the ASUS X800XL video card. The price is far higher than competitors, and yet some models of their X800XL cards use DDR RAM instead of GDDR3 like the others, and the RAM is clocked far lower. This makes it really hard to tell if you're getting a good card for your money. Should you get the lower clocked DDR-based card, you'll be paying a lot more for less performance. I'd recommend Built By ATI, Powercolor, or other brands of cards for this reason.ASUS card specs (for comparison)
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=Extreme%20AX80...
Powercolor card specs:
http://www.tul.com.tw/global/productlist.aspx?fold...
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
semo: The first 2 and the last one are definitely 256-bit, Radeon 9800 Pros. The 3rd one did not mention whether or not it was 128-bit or 256-bit, but I am pretty sure that particular SKU is 256-bit.Hope that helps,
Kristopher
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
Vol2005: It's a borderline situation with that rig. I would say you would be OK, but anything less and you would be better off getting a PCIe motherboard and video card.Kristopher
toyota - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
#20 what are you talking about an x300se gets 10 fps in doom3 at 1024x768. even in 800x600 its only 14 fps. you must be playing the game while you are stoned if you call that smooth gameplay.Vol2005 - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
Vol2005 - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
Anybody could tell me, please...if I will upgrade my graphics to AGP X800XL,
would the power of my AXP2500@3200 be enough for it or am i gonna upgrade cpu/mb too
Vol2005 - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link