Price Guides November 2003: Video Cards and Memory
by Kristopher Kubicki on November 23, 2003 11:59 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
ATI is still sitting pretty even after the GeForce FX 5700/5950 introduction. The Radeon 9600 Pro and XT continually won over NVIDIA’s 5700 Ultra for DX9 games in our last shootout. Considering the 9600 XT’s only cost about $200, this is great news. Also, the older 9600 Pro’s are shipping for under $150 as well! Just remember, with the 9600 XT you usually get a coupon for a free Half Life 2; but the 9600 Pro does not. Something to consider if you plan on paying $50 for Half Life 2 anyway.
On slightly unrelated news, we are starting to see ATI’s RS300 chipset show up in mass. ASUS debuted its 9100 IGP motherboard at Computex in Taiwan, but motherboards are just starting to hit the market now. The ASUS P4R800-VM will probably show up in the next couple weeks for $120, certainly not a bad buy for a Unix machine or file server (just remember you will take quite a hit in performance compared to the i865PE alternatives). Interestingly enough, within a month Intel will be reducing the prices on its 865G chipsets probably to compete directly with the ATI IGP line.
Prices deltas on the ATI line are typically more stable than that of NVIDIA’s and this week was just one of many that continued to fall into this pattern. The Radeon 9600 XT line continued its slow creep to $200, and surely by next week we will see prices in the $195 proximity. The incredibly overpriced Radeon 9800XT decided to drop another $20, probably early onset of the NVIDIA GeForceFX 5950 and 5900 price correction. Just remember, you can get an extremely capable Sapphire 9800 Pro for a little over $300 (up from $290). The Radeon 9700 Pro’s are probably a little better deal right now at $250. Our bot is having trouble picking up new sources for the 9700 Pro, and we loose about 2-3 sources per week. These cards are going the way of the 9500 Pro and fast.
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DeadFish - Monday, December 1, 2003 - link
Just a note of course-correction. Just when the ATI 9600SE's came out I needed a vidcard, and couldn't wait for the XT version to get HalfLife2 with it. I ended up rationalizing the SE version at $135 I think, and it came with Half Life 2 and was cheaper than the 9600Pro version.When I took my new card out of the box it had
ATI 9600 Pro on the back of the card.
I felt it a fair bargain at $60+cheaper than the XT. Even looks better than the Matrox I upgraded from! ;-)
KristopherKubicki - Saturday, November 29, 2003 - link
Ben,I was originally misinformed as far as performance goes but I talked to Derek and Anand about it, and updated the article.
When I said I didnt consider it a steller card, I was more talking along the lines of XFX as opposed to the GPU.
Sorry for the confusion!
Cheers,
Kristopher
BenSkywalker - Thursday, November 27, 2003 - link
"I wouldnt exactly consider it a stellar card, i think the 5700 Ultra actually outperforms it. :)"? The 5900 Non Ultra kills the 5700Ultra, they aren't in the same class. Take the scores of a 5900Ultra and knock off 10% and you have a 5900NU, if you factor in OCing I have yet to see a 5900NU that doesn't exceed 5900Ultra speeds. Even the 5900SE with the 2.8ns RAM bests the 5700Ultra at all settings all of the time, and the XFX board is one of the 2.2ns parts. In a lot of cases, the XFX 5900NU is close to twice the speed of the 5700Ultra. I'm not sure where you got the impression that the 5900NU was comparable to the mid level 9600/5700 class parts, but it most certainly isn't.
KristopherKubicki - Tuesday, November 25, 2003 - link
Valir,Will do :) Ill have it added as soon as possible.
Kristopher
vailr - Tuesday, November 25, 2003 - link
Please include TwinMos DDR PC3700 & PC4000 memory, for comparison. Can be found: http://www.showtimecomputer.com/cpumem/ddr.aspor
http://www.memoryx.net/twinmos.html
KristopherKubicki - Monday, November 24, 2003 - link
Or you could have just asked me to add it instead of throwing accusations here and there?I added it. I wouldnt exactly consider it a stellar card, i think the 5700 Ultra actually outperforms it. :)
Cheers,
Kristopher
quikah - Monday, November 24, 2003 - link
opps, messed up that post. :)The XFX 5900 is $199 at Newegg. Seems odd that this card is not included in the list. Does it undercut some sponsors?