Originally posted by: HDTVMan
Originally posted by: SynthDude2001
I don't think that I agree with you necessarily that this is a "problem". There has always been a market for high end video cards, and I don't see why that would change now. I personally have no problem with spending $400 on a card that performs at least twice as well as a $200 card...
You can still play all the latest games with a 9700 Pro or 9800 Pro, both of which can be had for around the $100 mark if you look around. Obviously you can't turn up all the "eye-candy", but that's what you pay the $$$ for high-end cards for. For some people it's important, for others it's not. [Edit: Most of my friends still play HL2 and FarCry on stuff like Radeon 9600 Pro's, 8500's, GF4MX's, GF2/3, etc...]
You don't need a 6800 Ultra or X850XT to play Half-Life 2 or FarCry.
I must be the other side of the spectrum. Budget Gamer. Or Blue Light Special Gamer.
Maybe its me but now I really dont mind waiting until that 400 video card costs 100.00 and as an added bonus that 50.00 video game is 10-15.00. Im just not buying into the need a 400.00 video card to play a game with full details garbage. I can wait. The loser is the game company that cant get someone like me to buy the game becuase I see it as a 450.00 game not just a 50.00 game. I dont feel I should suffer just because the video card company cant produce a quality budget video card any more. If I had the 400 to spend it would be on a complete system like the x-box 360 where I get a lot more for my money than just a video card that can produce water effects in the latest game making it really pretty.
But I guess there is enough that go that high end route.
I am just seeing a trend of more people passing instead. Its not like these guys dont have the cash they all pull 120K-150k they see it that same way I do. No game has been so great to cost them 450 to upgrade to play. Must less 650 for the top card. I guess I wont see you online until the video card price become reasonable but then you will have moved on and I will be about a generation of games behind. Granted you will have paid 650+ game to play it. I will pay 115+ to do the same just a year or more later. I have a lot more that I can do with that 500+ difference.
My Radeon 9500 is fine and Unreal 2004 is still a great game to me.
Maybe I am not as serious a gamer or just not a sucker for latest technology prices.
I see what you're saying, and I agree that you shouldn't necessarily feel the pressure to upgrade (especially to a high-end video card) just for one or two games, unless you just have the cash to blow. Lots of people play on older hardware, even newer games on older hardware as I pointed out, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I've sort of been on both sides myself - I waited to buy a TNT2 Ultra until it was ~$150 after the Geforce 256's came out...waited to buy a Radeon 8500 after it was $85 after the 9700 Pro came out...then I went a little higher end and got a 9700 Pro a year after it came out for about $200, then sold that last summer to partially finance my $345 6800GT purchase. I'll be selling that too this summer to upgrade to a R520/G70 most likely. It's just a hobby really...I don't mind spending money on gaming with full details and high resolutions.
In reference to the line I bolded in your post above - If by "budget" you mean $100 or less, then yeah, the lineups for current video cards are crap, I'll agree with that. It's usually more cost effective and better to buy yesterday's (or the day before that's
) high end video card (especially used), than it is to buy whatever castrated X300 or 6200 that ATI and Nvidia want to sell you right now. 
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