does it make sense to spend almost $300 on a video card?

[OS]

I play games casually and I would like a new video card, but anything decent costs around $250, and when you include tax and/or shipping it's getting to $300.

I'm not in a shortage of money, but it seems kind of ridiculous to pay $300 for a modern video card. But from what I read in the deal/video/general hardware forums, it seems like people are tripping over each other to buy these things.

For many generations, $150 or under would buy a very good video card, but that's not the case any more. :

 

[white]

no, it doesn't make sense.

 

[Viper GTS]

I've never paid over $150 for a video card, & $150 today will buy you a perfectly decent video card.

Top of the line video cards use extremely expensive components, there's no way around that.

There's plenty of middle ground though, a 9700/9800 Pro will do fine for most people without the need to drop $300-500.

Newegg actually has some 6800 series cards for over $600 right now.

Crazy, but a couple of those in SLI would be sweet.



Viper GTS

 

[Arkitech]

maybe if you're a millionaire

 

[slick230]

Don't you know the more $$$ you spend on your video card the bigger youe E-penis is?

 

[DaveSimmons]

You can play Doom3 on a $50 card if you don't mind 640x480 low quality mode, or about the same image quality as you'll get on the $150 XBox people are about to suggest to you.

People pay that much because they want very high resolutions (1280x1024 and 1600x1200) and image quality that's much, much higher than an XBox can produce.

It's no stranger than paying $300 for golf clubs or $100 for sunglasses, and much less odd than paying for a Rolex.

 

[wfbberzerker]

nope, but people still do it.

 

[kreb]

I don't think I'd spend more than $150..so I guess I'm still in that generation.. /old

 

[xSkyDrAx]

You can say the for just about anything.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
You can play Doom3 on a $50 card if you don't mind 640x480 low quality mode, or about the same image quality as you'll get on the $150 XBox people are about to suggest to you.

People pay that much because they want very high resolutions (1280x1024 and 1600x1200) and image quality that's much, much higher than an XBox can produce.

It's no stranger than paying $300 for golf clubs or $100 for sunglasses, and much less odd than paying for a Rolex.

I just bought a pair of $100 sunglasses. But still, that's $100, not $300. And a good pair of sunglasses lasts many years. A $300 video card is cool for maybe a year and then it sucks.

 

[TheLonelyPhoenix]

They sell expensive vid cards b/c people will buy them.

My Radeon 9700 Pro still handles any game out there just fine; even Doom3 runs well under slightly more modest settings. Sure, newer cards give you the preformance you pay for, but its not like everything else has gone obsolete.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
I've never paid over $150 for a video card, & $150 today will buy you a perfectly decent video card.

Top of the line video cards use extremely expensive components, there's no way around that.

There's plenty of middle ground though, a 9700/9800 Pro will do fine for most people without the need to drop $300-500.

Newegg actually has some 6800 series cards for over $600 right now.

Crazy, but a couple of those in SLI would be sweet.



Viper GTS

heh, SLI $600 video cards. Might as well put that towards the down payment of the 05 G35 I like.

 

[PoPPeR]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
You can play Doom3 on a $50 card if you don't mind 640x480 low quality mode, or about the same image quality as you'll get on the $150 XBox people are about to suggest to you.

People pay that much because they want very high resolutions (1280x1024 and 1600x1200) and image quality that's much, much higher than an XBox can produce.

It's no stranger than paying $300 for golf clubs or $100 for sunglasses, and much less odd than paying for a Rolex.

$300 for golf clubs? I hope you mean per iron/wood, because $300 for a set of clubs is nothing

 

[dc]

i refuse to spend over $100 on a video card. spent 90 on a tnt back in 1999, 60 on a tnt2ultra thanks to valueamerica, 100 on a gf3ti200 thanks to bestbuy black friday. maybe i'll pickup a 9700/9800 when they hit 100. heh.

 

[PoPPeR]

spending ~$150 for my 9800pro was more than worth it, and this is coming from someone who never spent more than $80 before (gforce 2 gts). Only problem is, I rarely play computer games anymore

 

[Staples]

I paid $400 for mine and probably game 3 hours a week on PC. It isn't worth it but I am a sucker. I spend at least $1200 in hardware every year.

 

[Injury]

Just go to the FS/FT forum and buy last week's card off some sucker who tried to justify paying $600 for the cards that came out most recently.

 

[Zee]

uhmmm.... yes it does!

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Injury
Just go to the FS/FT forum and buy last week's card off some sucker who tried to justify paying $600 for the cards that came out most recently.

Yep, that's how I got my latest card.

 

[Chaotic42]

It depends on how much you use it. To me a $30000 car doesn't make sense, but to someone else it may seem perfectly normal.

How many hours of work is $300 for you? That's how I think of big purchases.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42
It depends on how much you use it. To me a $30000 car doesn't make sense, but to someone else it may seem perfectly normal.

How many hours of work is $300 for you? That's how I think of big purchases.

about 10 hrs before tax?

Now that you put it that way, it's so not worth it.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42
It depends on how much you use it. To me a $30000 car doesn't make sense, but to someone else it may seem perfectly normal.

How many hours of work is $300 for you? That's how I think of big purchases.

Oh also, a $30K G35 will get me pussy. SLI geforces 6s won't get me any pussy.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

I paid $408 shipped for a GF4Ti4600 the morning it hit the market. I had it three days later along with my newly-arrived 1.6a Northwood that's been running ~2.5GHz with OEM HS/fan ever since then. Until recently, I've been very very happy.

 

[Nebor]

So I came home last night to find my computer was sitting with a black screen, orange light on the monitor. I won't bore you with the details, but after swapping the video card around with another PC, I figured out that the Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer fan failed, and cooked my 9800 Pro. So today I went out and bought myself an Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT, with exactly 5 minutes of research on the performance\pricing.

The thing is, I'm not nearly into PCs as much as I was say, a year ago. And I really didn't need a new video card, my 9800 Pro played the occasional game of CS: Source just fine, and I figured it would do fine in HL:2.

I play games for maybe, maybe 2 hours a week. For instance, I've had this video card installed for like, 6 hours now, and I haven't played a game, or ran a benchmark. I've just done what I usually do, run around my different forums.

So yeah, it's crappy that the VGA Silencer failed and killed my card. I sent them an email, but I'm positive they don't give a damn.

I have about $1000 worth of performance suspension parts en route to me now, with at least another $500 going into installation of said parts, and another $1400 in wheels and tires, and another $1500 in engine mods in a project car I'm working on. Kinda sucks, when my hobbies shifted from computers to car, it's like the computer started hurting for attention, and detonated itself.

BTW, the 6800 GT is loud.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: OS
Oh also, a $30K G35 will get me pussy. SLI geforces 6s won't get me any pussy.

You don't need a nice car to get girls.