Price Guides October 2004: Video and Memory

Video Cards - ATI

First off, let us just say that ATI's X800 offerings are still far too expensive to fully recommend in a price-oriented guide such as this. The performance is certainly worth it if you're a hardcore, avid, die-hard gamer, but for the majority of users who either play games casually or don't even play at all, there are much more affordable options still around to fill that empty AGP slot. Most importantly, the alternatives don't cost upwards of $400.

Sapphire's Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB doesn't want to give up its position as one of the best values in video cards for gamers, and this week brings no reason to take that position away. With blazing performance in games like Unreal Tournament 2003/2004, Battlefield: 1942, and many others, along with acceptable performance in more intensive games such as Far Cry or even Doom 3, the 9800 Pro still has the most bang for your buck. For most people, frame rates of anything above 30-45 FPS is more than acceptable and beyond that, most people don't notice much difference. For this reason, we have to continue our recommendation of the 9800 Pro over its more powerful brothers such as the X800 series of cards. Game developers aren't likely to alienate this card any time soon, even with beasts like the X800 or NVIDIA's 6800 series running around.

On the budget gaming side of things, the 9600XT lineup has come down in price enough to put it almost on par with the 9600 Pro. Currently available for under $140, the Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 128MB comes to mind as a good option if you don't have a ton of money to spend between now and your next LAN party.

If gaming isn't a priority in any way, you can, of course, stick with onboard video providing your motherboard has it. If not, it's hard to beat the bargain-basement pricing on a Radeon 9000. The ATI Radeon 9000 64MB won't play the latest games too easily, but it will suffice for the type who just needs to check email from the family and book the occasional cruise online. The sub-$40 price tag certainly shouldn't hurt the wallet too much either.