Power color 9800 Pro (Retail) at Monarch for $115.00 shipped.
- Thread starter Budarow
- Start date
I am not a video card expert - far from it. However, I did some reading on this. Do note this card is a 128 bit card, and so supposedly (from what I've read) will run a bit slower than a 256 bit version. At this point, while the price is really good - especially for retail version - I am not sure whether this deal or the Rosewill 9800 Pro w/256 bit (for around $129 now, less $10 discount if still going) is better. I would like to get one or the other. Anyone with a better handle on this please feel free to chime in. And, yes, I know that a 6600GT would be infinitely cooler, but I simply can't afford one right now (yes, the lousy $45 to $60 after rebate difference is out of my budget overall.) Thanks.
Yes, dual output... 1 VGA and 1 DVI
Nice deal... but from what I hear you may be better off spending another $30-$40 and getting a 6600
Nice deal... but from what I hear you may be better off spending another $30-$40 and getting a 6600
I'm not a video card expert either, but all sources say this card is 256-bit. If you read the description from Monarch, it says 256-bit.
I stand corrected - from the color of the fan it does look like this IS the 256 bit version.
Do note, however, that Powercolor does make a 128 bit R98 PC3 9800 Pro as well as a 256 bit version, and Monarch seemingly does not always list all specs correctly on their website.
I'm just a little wary of on site specs lately:
I recently passed on a 3100+ Sempron OEM that was on sale at Monarch. Their site listed it as the 130nm version (I thought it was the Palermo, but a fellow AT member pointed out the 130nm spec .) Turns out it was, from at least one report, the 90nm version (from feedback by another member) Link on that missed opportunity.
Guess YMMV on retailer info.
Again, I believe you are correct - it looks to be 256 bit.
Any thoughts on which may be best: Powercolor? Sapphire? Rosewill? All have 9800 Pros running around the same price (edit: although a retail version - the Powercolor - may be a serious plus.)
Of those three, Sapphire is the best choice. They have produced some very good cards and their reputation is noted in the gaming world. I owned a Powercolor 9600P at one time before upgrading and I never had a problem with it though. So I wouldn't necessarily steer clear of it if you can find a sweet deal on one. But if price is equal, there's no doubt I'd opt for the Sapphire.
Everyone praises the 6600GT because of its performance and low price. However, what if you're not a gamer? I have a Ti4200 8x that is probably on its last leg quality wise. I play basically one game, MVP Baseball, and thats it. The rest of my time is more or less application use - Office, Photoshop, Firefox, WMP, Winamp, CD/DVD burning, etc. Also, the dollar difference is somewhat important as my PC budget is $0 so I'd have to borrow from my car mod budget... 
Originally posted by: Kevin
Everyone praises the 6600GT because of its performance and low price. However, what if you're not a gamer? I have a Ti4200 8x that is probably on its last leg quality wise. I play basically one game, MVP Baseball, and thats it. The rest of my time is more or less application use - Office, Photoshop, Firefox, WMP, Winamp, CD/DVD burning, etc. Also, the dollar difference is somewhat important as my PC budget is $0 so I'd have to borrow from my car mod budget...
People don't have savings anymore?
Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
Originally posted by: Kevin
Everyone praises the 6600GT because of its performance and low price. However, what if you're not a gamer? I have a Ti4200 8x that is probably on its last leg quality wise. I play basically one game, MVP Baseball, and thats it. The rest of my time is more or less application use - Office, Photoshop, Firefox, WMP, Winamp, CD/DVD burning, etc. Also, the dollar difference is somewhat important as my PC budget is $0 so I'd have to borrow from my car mod budget...
People don't have savings anymore?
I don't have much interest in computers anymore but I still like to keep up with a few things. Any money I save goes into my Car Budge, which is used to buy gas and modifications for my car.
Example:
Engine: headers, better intake, reinforced engine mounts, etc.
Suspension: coilovers/springs, sways, etc.
Exterior: paint work (fix dents and scratches), body kit, carbon fiber parts, etc.
$45 savings (after rebate I might add) is at minimum a week or so of gas. It also delays my purchase of a new cold air intake w/ a MAF customizer. *hertz are important to some, torque and horespower is important to me!
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
- 32
- 91
Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
People don't have savings anymore?
Welcome to the new America -- the Third World America the nation is transforming into.
Edit: Looks like the price was raised to $120 with free shipping.
Not playing game? A Voodoo 2000 works just fine in my 1.7 celeron - even no pain on editing video (under 2GB). Multi-task is a no no.Originally posted by: Kevin
Everyone praises the 6600GT because of its performance and low price. However, what if you're not a gamer? I have a Ti4200 8x that is probably on its last leg quality wise. I play basically one game, MVP Baseball, and thats it. The rest of my time is more or less application use - Office, Photoshop, Firefox, WMP, Winamp, CD/DVD burning, etc. Also, the dollar difference is somewhat important as my PC budget is $0 so I'd have to borrow from my car mod budget...
So true. The US is following the model of most of South America. Spending way too much and living a lifestyle it can't afford. Both consumers and governments are out spending their incomes. We'll all have to pay the price in the end.
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
People don't have savings anymore?
Welcome to the new America -- the Third World America the nation is transforming into.
Edit: Looks like the price was raised to $120 with free shipping.
I think you fail to see my point. I for one budget my money into savings, expenses and play. Expenses are deducted first, followed by savings and play. The majority of my play money is used for my car and vacations. The same way you people will lay down money on computer equipment, I do the same with my car. For example, say I have $500 sitting in my toy budget, and I need $550 for my next upgrade. However, something happens to my computer and I need a new part. The money has to come from somewhere, hence the toy budget. Now the toy budget can either have $115 debit, or $180 debit.
Its not a matter of savings, its more priority. The car has priority over the computer. In reality the money is being spent just on something else. Think of it like an a la carte menu in a restaurant. You are hungry and you only have $10 to spend. Are you going to spend $6 on a beer and the rest on food, or are you going to spend the $10 on food and drink water?
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
- 32
- 91
I actually think we could continue to have the lifestyle and quality of life we have, but we have to take care of our economic problems first (mass legal immigration, mass illegal immigration, foreign work visas (H-1B, L-1, etc.), and foreign outsourcing). As I see it, by merging our economy with third world economies, the end result will be an averaging out of nations' standards of living because of labor wage arbitrage, and since the rest of the world is filled with billions of impoverished people, many of whom are now getting college educations (India, China), the end result will be bad for Americans. But that's just my radical theory...we'll get a chance to see how it plays out in practice. (Note--the U.S. economy is no longer generating middle class high-value-added college-education-requiring jobs in import-export sensitive areas...there's a reason for that. Of course, the mainstream news media and politicians are doing all they can to ignore all of this.)
Actually I see those as part of what has saved us so far. America has always been about growth. Many of those legal immigrants and H1B workers kick ass over your average American breed worker. Companies are lamenting that the increased H1B bill has been stalled. Their is actually a shortage of skilled workers in the US. I still have people calling me about jobs they offered me 2 years ago. They can't fill them. These immigrants made America the concentrate of talent from all over the world. Sadly that has changed of late. I work in research and many of the world's most talented people are not willing to come to America anymore due to recent world events. I've talked to about 10 graduate students looking for places to do their post docs. All of them have excluded America for political reasons. Worse, many of the foreign graduate students I know here are itching to get their PhDs and leave the US. For most of this century, these are the kind of people who have made America what it is.
I don't see America turning into Bangladesh. But I see it turning into Europe which isn't exactly the most vibrant place on Earth. We've passed the torch and China is running with it.
I don't see America turning into Bangladesh. But I see it turning into Europe which isn't exactly the most vibrant place on Earth. We've passed the torch and China is running with it.
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
- 32
- 91
My appologies to those looking for discussion about the video card, but these issues need to be discussed wherever and whenever.
Postdocs -- laugh! The postdoctorate is an insult! Why would someone with tremendous productive and intellectual ability, a bachelor's degree, and a Ph.D. (at least 9 years of education, if not 10 these days) want to work 70 hours/week for less than $30,000/year ??? The very existence of the postdoctorate, at least the large quantity of postdocs, is evidence that we do not have a shortage!
[One of the reasons why I lost the drive to complete a biophysics Ph.D. in the late '90's was my concern about the employment market and a feeling that I should be using my talents elsewhere. I left with a MS and headed to law school thinking patent law. Of course, the employment market changed dramatically in just a couple years. When I started law school, a mere bachelor's in chemistry plus a JD from a second tier law school would allow one to obtain a six-figure job. Today you need at least a Ph.D. and graduation from a first tier if not a top twenty law school plus above average grades.]
Keep drinking the kool-aid. I don't buy any of it. Whenever a business or politician claims a shortage--you have to make sure that it's qualified by asking the follow-up question, "shortage--at what price?". If you're talking about companies wanting to pay low wages for college-educated employees, hopefully there will be a shortage. If you're talking about wanting to hire the top 5% of people with the needed skills at average wages, there will be a shortage, as well there should be.
A shortage is actually almost impossible, at least given the current state of our jobless recovery economy. Basic principles of economics tell us that when there is a shortage, the price point will have to increase and that when it increases, more suppliers will enter the market to fill demand at the higher price point. In other words, if job opportunities at upper middle class wages with job security were going wanting for applicants, students would rush into the field (and people would go back to college to rush into it). This is where many of the now laid off IT people came from (rushing into the field during the '90's).
I laughed when I saw you talk about postdoctorates! Postdocs are low-wage gypsy scientist positions and the only reason people with 9+ years of college education take them is because they cannot find better jobs (either as academics or industry researchers). The very existence of postdocs suggests an oversupply of Ph.D.'s. (This has been public knowledge for some time. Even Science published a short article about a glut of physics Ph.D.'s a couple years back (something like 1470 newly awarded physics Ph.D.'s and only 42 jobs for them in a certain recent year).)
Recommended reading: See Arthur Sowers' essay, "Contemporary Problems in Science Jobs" and pay attention to the part about career halflife. (Do a Google search for the title and it should pop right up.) You might also want to visit the Usenet group sci.research.careers
If we have such a shortage of skilled, college-educated people, then where are the jobs for them? How come newspapers aren't chock full of large ads? Where are the radio ads offering to give away cars to engineers who submit their resumes? (I heard them on the radio years ago.) Until just a few months ago the economy had suffered a net loss of private sector jobs under the Bush regime (with the small net gain being created by the growth in government). Not only has this been a jobless "recovery", but in terms of jobs per capita, we've suffered a large loss since the economy needed to generate about 150,000 new jobs every year to account for our nation's runaway population growth (32.7 million in the ten years from 1990-2000). In other words, over the past four years the economy needed to generate at least 6.5 million new jobs just to keep pace with population growth.
Remember, when the corporations claim a shortage, they are really just asking the government to increase the pool of labor so that they can keep a larger percentage of the value created by the act of production for their own profit. It is very short-sighted since this kind of labor wage arbitrage will end up damaging the nation's economy. [It's short-sighted because the businesses won't be able to keep selling their products at the current prices when the populace no longer has the money to purchase them at those prices. But it's similar to a tragedy of the commons--the costs of the actions are externalities and if you don't take advantage of the commons (foreign poverty), your competitors will.]
Take the businesses' claims of a labor shortage with a rock of salt.
When I start to see news reports about how the nation's economy generated 500,000 new jobs per month for the past six months and how the majority of them were full time solid middle class and upper middle class jobs (as opposed to a mass of worthless poverty wage retail service jobs and temp jobs) then I'll believe that we have a shortage. When I can easily obtain interviews and find myself competing with a mere three other candidates (as opposed to fifty or three hundred) and start to receive a number of offers with my being a mediocre interviewer, I'll believe it.
Based on all of the evidence that I have observed, we have a large oversupply of college-educated people, including those in technical fields and those with advanced degrees.
I guess much of it is based on people's perspectives. If you did well during the recession and if you're a naturally good interviewer and the market was good for you, then for you the economy is really good. It's self-affirming to buy the propaganda the politicians and media feed to us, especially the ever-popular education-shortage myth. (Why Americans gobble that garbage up, I do not know.)
When you read the articles about the number of new jobs created every month, ask yourself:
Is it enough to keep up with the population growth of the labor force (at least 150,000/month, not counting the growth in illegal aliens)?
Will it be enough to make up for the jobs deficit that the nation suffered over the past couple years when we either lost jobs or didn't gain enough new jobs to keep up with population growth?
What kinds of jobs were created and at what types of wages? Were they full time college-education-requiring high-value-added jobs, or were they temp jobs and poverty wage service sector jobs?
Sadly, our near worthless media doesn't ask those kinds of questions.
Postdocs -- laugh! The postdoctorate is an insult! Why would someone with tremendous productive and intellectual ability, a bachelor's degree, and a Ph.D. (at least 9 years of education, if not 10 these days) want to work 70 hours/week for less than $30,000/year ??? The very existence of the postdoctorate, at least the large quantity of postdocs, is evidence that we do not have a shortage!
[One of the reasons why I lost the drive to complete a biophysics Ph.D. in the late '90's was my concern about the employment market and a feeling that I should be using my talents elsewhere. I left with a MS and headed to law school thinking patent law. Of course, the employment market changed dramatically in just a couple years. When I started law school, a mere bachelor's in chemistry plus a JD from a second tier law school would allow one to obtain a six-figure job. Today you need at least a Ph.D. and graduation from a first tier if not a top twenty law school plus above average grades.]
Keep drinking the kool-aid. I don't buy any of it. Whenever a business or politician claims a shortage--you have to make sure that it's qualified by asking the follow-up question, "shortage--at what price?". If you're talking about companies wanting to pay low wages for college-educated employees, hopefully there will be a shortage. If you're talking about wanting to hire the top 5% of people with the needed skills at average wages, there will be a shortage, as well there should be.
A shortage is actually almost impossible, at least given the current state of our jobless recovery economy. Basic principles of economics tell us that when there is a shortage, the price point will have to increase and that when it increases, more suppliers will enter the market to fill demand at the higher price point. In other words, if job opportunities at upper middle class wages with job security were going wanting for applicants, students would rush into the field (and people would go back to college to rush into it). This is where many of the now laid off IT people came from (rushing into the field during the '90's).
I laughed when I saw you talk about postdoctorates! Postdocs are low-wage gypsy scientist positions and the only reason people with 9+ years of college education take them is because they cannot find better jobs (either as academics or industry researchers). The very existence of postdocs suggests an oversupply of Ph.D.'s. (This has been public knowledge for some time. Even Science published a short article about a glut of physics Ph.D.'s a couple years back (something like 1470 newly awarded physics Ph.D.'s and only 42 jobs for them in a certain recent year).)
Recommended reading: See Arthur Sowers' essay, "Contemporary Problems in Science Jobs" and pay attention to the part about career halflife. (Do a Google search for the title and it should pop right up.) You might also want to visit the Usenet group sci.research.careers
If we have such a shortage of skilled, college-educated people, then where are the jobs for them? How come newspapers aren't chock full of large ads? Where are the radio ads offering to give away cars to engineers who submit their resumes? (I heard them on the radio years ago.) Until just a few months ago the economy had suffered a net loss of private sector jobs under the Bush regime (with the small net gain being created by the growth in government). Not only has this been a jobless "recovery", but in terms of jobs per capita, we've suffered a large loss since the economy needed to generate about 150,000 new jobs every year to account for our nation's runaway population growth (32.7 million in the ten years from 1990-2000). In other words, over the past four years the economy needed to generate at least 6.5 million new jobs just to keep pace with population growth.
Remember, when the corporations claim a shortage, they are really just asking the government to increase the pool of labor so that they can keep a larger percentage of the value created by the act of production for their own profit. It is very short-sighted since this kind of labor wage arbitrage will end up damaging the nation's economy. [It's short-sighted because the businesses won't be able to keep selling their products at the current prices when the populace no longer has the money to purchase them at those prices. But it's similar to a tragedy of the commons--the costs of the actions are externalities and if you don't take advantage of the commons (foreign poverty), your competitors will.]
Take the businesses' claims of a labor shortage with a rock of salt.
When I start to see news reports about how the nation's economy generated 500,000 new jobs per month for the past six months and how the majority of them were full time solid middle class and upper middle class jobs (as opposed to a mass of worthless poverty wage retail service jobs and temp jobs) then I'll believe that we have a shortage. When I can easily obtain interviews and find myself competing with a mere three other candidates (as opposed to fifty or three hundred) and start to receive a number of offers with my being a mediocre interviewer, I'll believe it.
Based on all of the evidence that I have observed, we have a large oversupply of college-educated people, including those in technical fields and those with advanced degrees.
I guess much of it is based on people's perspectives. If you did well during the recession and if you're a naturally good interviewer and the market was good for you, then for you the economy is really good. It's self-affirming to buy the propaganda the politicians and media feed to us, especially the ever-popular education-shortage myth. (Why Americans gobble that garbage up, I do not know.)
When you read the articles about the number of new jobs created every month, ask yourself:
Is it enough to keep up with the population growth of the labor force (at least 150,000/month, not counting the growth in illegal aliens)?
Will it be enough to make up for the jobs deficit that the nation suffered over the past couple years when we either lost jobs or didn't gain enough new jobs to keep up with population growth?
What kinds of jobs were created and at what types of wages? Were they full time college-education-requiring high-value-added jobs, or were they temp jobs and poverty wage service sector jobs?
Sadly, our near worthless media doesn't ask those kinds of questions.
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