8800GT - the new 7600GT?

[dreddfunk]

You know, with all of the threads on the 8800GT, along with everyone else I've been inevitably speculating on what is to come in the next few months, and I find myself wondering if the 8800GT has really been positioned to become the new 7600GT.

Here is a part that sits between the three existing top models on performance, while falling in the $200-$250 range. The AT review even mentions that NVIDIA expects pricing to come down even further, to right at $200 for the 512MB version and well under $200 for the 256MB version.

we can expect the stock clocked 512MB 8800 GT to hit $200 at the low end. The 256MB part, which won't show up until the end of November, will hit prices below $200.

Link: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3140&p=5


So what do we take from the GT being a $150-250 card, depending on memory and clocks?


My brain is telling me that the GT is a fantastic deal right now, even as it tells me that it will very soon be eclipsed, and fall into the true performance mid-range of $150-200, with both $350 and $500 cards sitting on top of it.

Now something twice as fast as the GT, that cost $500, just might assuage all of those folks disappointed with the GT's inability to run Crysis acceptably at 19x12.


I hope for AMD/ATI's sake that the 3800 performs extremely well, and that they have much faster cards on tap.

 

[yacoub]

At the moment it's more like a new 7950GT which IIRC was a die shrink and basically offered the performance and the 512MB of the 7800GTX for 7800GT prices and almost reached the 7900GTX in performance. The only real difference here is that this is even more aggressively priced.

Which means it's about what we expected NVidia to release back in the spring when they instead gave us an 8600 turd ;P

 

[dreddfunk]

Yacoub - the part about last spring is where I disagree with you. I think folks weren't looking for a GTS-killer last spring, but a part that slotted in the $200 bracket that had 64/80 shaders. I wouldn't expect a GTS-killer a mere 3-5 months after its release. I think we were expecting a true mid-range card with some horses, a la the 7600gt, and the 8800GT wouldn't have been anything but a high-end part last spring.

I'm also dubious about the pricing structure. As you mention the 8800gt is more aggressively priced than the 7950gt. It seems destined to occupy the $150-250 range depending on configuration. I don't recall the 7950gt ever going as low as $150-200 during its normal cycle (but I truthfully don't remember).

Unless NVIDIA is doing what AMD/ATI claimed to be doing (i.e. redefining the price of top-end performance downward), the GT's pricing alone indicates to me that at least two if not three new parts will come out soon.

Cheers.