A matter of money

[jhurst]

Originally posted by: Bar81
You don't have to pay a premium. In fact, if you pulled the trigger you could have gotten one for $360. And I disagree, games right now can make full use of the card. You need the X800 pro to play FarCry how I'm playing it - 1280x768 AA/AF

Yep AA/AF is pretty important when you play games. Helps you win!! Seriously, paying $350-500 for AA/AF is pretty pricy. I'll run my games @ 1024x768 with high settings on my $100 card. I'm glad that some of you can afford to pay that much just for graphics, and so you can get 100FPS instead of 70.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: jhurst
What I think is dumb is buy an X800 (or 6800 assuming IT does in fact get released) at such a premium price. Games right now can't even make use of the card. The 9800pro/5950U are basically owning any game that comes out right now.

I don't oppose buying these cards, they are greatness, but wait until games actually need these cards. Which may be awhile, and will also allow the markets to settle down a bit on these cards, with pricetags around $250-300.

why? i didn't pay a premium for my x800 ($359), and i sold the card from my second pc before it's value dropped (actually sold it for $30 more than i paid for it 6 mo ago). the diff was $159 - the price of a low end mainstream card.

 

[jhurst]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: jhurst
What I think is dumb is buy an X800 (or 6800 assuming IT does in fact get released) at such a premium price. Games right now can't even make use of the card. The 9800pro/5950U are basically owning any game that comes out right now.

I don't oppose buying these cards, they are greatness, but wait until games actually need these cards. Which may be awhile, and will also allow the markets to settle down a bit on these cards, with pricetags around $250-300.

why? i didn't pay a premium for my x800 ($359), and i sold the card from my second pc before it's value dropped (actually sold it for $30 more than i paid for it 6 mo ago). the diff was $159 - the price of a low end mainstream card.

Yea we will see about that in a couple of months (probably still before games actually need those cards) when the price drops under $300. Also, you should know by now, if you buy new technology, you are paying a premium for it. ATi's profit % will never be higher on the X800's than it is right now.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: jhurst

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: jhurst
What I think is dumb is buy an X800 (or 6800 assuming IT does in fact get released) at such a premium price. Games right now can't even make use of the card. The 9800pro/5950U are basically owning any game that comes out right now.

I don't oppose buying these cards, they are greatness, but wait until games actually need these cards. Which may be awhile, and will also allow the markets to settle down a bit on these cards, with pricetags around $250-300.

why? i didn't pay a premium for my x800 ($359), and i sold the card from my second pc before it's value dropped (actually sold it for $30 more than i paid for it 6 mo ago). the diff was $159 - the price of a low end mainstream card.

Yea we will see about that in a couple of months (probably still before games actually need those cards) when the price drops under $300. Also, you should know by now, if you buy new technology, you are paying a premium for it. ATi's profit % will never be higher on the X800's than it is right now.

won't happen. msrp will still be $399. what will happen is that i wouldn't be able to get $200 for my 5900nu. these cards won't drop significantly until the next round of cards come out. history has proved that over and over.

 

[FacelessNobody]

ForceCalibur I am very inclined to agree with you, and that is in fact how I consider many of my purchases. Buying a Radeon 9700 Pro when they came out was, I think, an excellent move. It still plays everything I install.

I've seen a similar 'blunder' with company cars/fleets. Corporations (I'm thinking of one in particular here, so it's a generalization) will buy Pontiac Bonnevilles or something for maybe $30000, try to make them last for six or seven years, and then sell them for maybe $7000 if they're lucky. The smarter move would be to buy something like a BMW 325i for maybe $35000 make it last for those same six or seven years, and sell it for twice what you sold the Pontiac. An alternative would be to extend the service life of the car till you can get $7000 for it (so maybe ten years). I didn't even factor in the added experience of a sportier, more prestigious car. Repair costs are not a very large factor, especially since I have first hand experience purchasing parts for BMWs and Fords.

Still, it can all be argued against.

 

[ronnn]

I say buy what you can afford and enjoy yourself. Unless of course sport of buying and selling appeals. Many a person has tons of fun playing counter strike on an aging system. :beer:

 

[Lawranch]

I think you are safe spending the money on this generation of cards. ATI/Nvidia have turned up the competition a few notches, so we are seeing a big increase in performance. People who bought the 9700 Pro when it came out were able to run them for years.

The time not to buy the top end card is when they go from a 9800 to a 9800XT where you pay twice as much for slightly better performance.