Price Guides October 2004: Video and Memory

Video Cards - NVIDIA

Much like ATI's top-of-the-line cards, NVIDIA monsters such as the 6800 series still have a distance to go until they become more affordable. It does appear, however, that top cards from NVIDIA may be getting closer to the pricing sweet spot a little quicker than ATI, which is great news if OpenGL games like Doom 3 are your main focus. It has been shown repeatedly that NVIDIA manages OpenGL support extremely well and tends to surpass ATI when cards of equivalent standards run games that use the well-established technology. Regardless of this, the prices are still too high to fully recommend for anyone, except for the most dedicated of gamers who absolutely demand the highest possible frame rates and eye candy while keeping the resolution cranked up.

For the time being, and until something new comes around to replace the top lineup, something from the 5900 range of cards would be the best option for an immediate purchase. Gigabyte's GeForceFX 5900 128MB PCIe card has the best price for that chipset in a PCI Express package. If you're looking to take on the new slot, keep in mind that so far, boards that support PCIe also use DDR2. There are some exceptions, but if you're going to make the change anyway, you might as well take DDR2 now. This isn't because DDR2 is the best option currently, but it will prevent you from having to upgrade your motherboard once for the PCIe option and again later for DDR2 when it becomes a more viable purchasing option.

AGP-based motherboards still have the majority of the market and will continue to have it for quite a while to come. Do we even need to go into how long it took for ISA to disappear? In any case, the LeadTek GeForceFX 5900 128MB is a great buy this week and has similar performance and even pricing as the Gigabyte PCIe card mentioned above. This would be the card to pick if you love gaming, but don't have a ton of cash to slap down for a 6800 from NVIDIA or an X800 from ATI.

The budget market has the Gainward GeForceFX 5700 128MB to offer us at under $100 shipped. This card is a solid choice if gaming is not the biggest factor in your decision, yet you would still like to play once in a while. You can certainly get away with less, i.e. onboard video or even a 5200 series, if you don't intend to game and just need the basics such as email, web browsing, or even video chat.