Sure hope the nForce4 prices come down...

[chucky2]

Man, I'm spec'ing a PC upgrade for my brothers friend, and had wanted to wait on nForce4 because of the upgrade path it shows...but prices like the below are making me doubt it'll be a viable option for as long as he's willing to wait (4-6 weeks maybe)...

12/02/2004 nForce4 prices on www.PriceWatch.com

I sure hope these two vendors are just price gouging...expected date of availability is 12/10/2004 for both vendors, so hopefully we will see more vendors starting to offer nForce4-based motherboards that people can actually buy soon...

Chuck

EDIT: Fixed the link and added expected date of availability info.

 

[Tommunist]

Those are SLI boards - I saw some other prices for the non-SLI boards that were around 190-210 bucks.

 

[gobucks]

zipzoomfly has the Asus A8N-E SLI for $225, with availability listed as mid-december, but they are currently backordered. That's only $25 more than MSRP. The ultras will likely be around $180, at least for a few weeks. However, with 3 companies (MSI, Asus, and Gigabyte) all coming out with boards over the next week or 2, I think there will be some pressure to have prices be reasonable pretty soon. If your friend can wait 4-6 weeks, there will be NO problem finding a reasonably priced board. I expect semi-reasonable prices before christmas.

 

[chucky2]

Tommunist- I think even that is to high...we're talking about a average consumer motherboard here...not a workstation or server class motherboard (even though some may use it as a workstation motherboard...)

I'd say $140-$170 USD is the high point I'd be willing to pay for a motherboard...

I wonder if someone will make a motherboard based on the nForce4 Ultra without SLI...?

Chuck

 

[chucky2]

gobucks- I, and I'm sure my brothers friend, sure hope your right!

Chuck

 

[darkswordsman17]

Yes, they are price gouging because SLI boards are for gamers and so online sites have been gouging the hell out of stuff like video cards because there have been a large number of idiots who actually are willing to pay those exorbetant prices.

There should be plenty of non-SLI nF4 boards.

 

[chucky2]

darkswordsman17- My understanding though is that while there'll be nForce4 motherboards, they won't have the faster Hypertransport bus in it...

...guess I've got to go find out if that really matters or not...

Chuck

 

[Tab]

It's not technically price gouging, because its not something you need to survive nor is it a emgerency situation, its simply a pre-order price. They will make non-SLI Nforce4 boards.

 

[chucky2]

Tabb- I wonder why then people would pre-order at this price if in a couple of weeks they could buy one for much less?

Do you think some people are in that much of a hurry to upgrade?

Chuck

 

[gobucks]

well, supply is an issue, so I'm sure the first few shipments will sell out almost instantly. Paying, say $225 rather than $200 might be worth it to be guaranteed you don't have to wait for the 3rd-4th shipments to come in before you can actually get one. Also, it's common for some of these stores to raise prices after they see the demand is high. When monarch first had the 3200+ socket 939 chip, it was $208, same as MSRP, but after selling out repeatedly, they upped the price to like $250, cause they knew they were the only ones who had them and people would buy them. In fact, I'm considering going ahead and buying the Asus SLI board from zipzoomfly if they'll let me, but I'm hoping someone will start selling the gigabyte Ultra board before then.

 

[Burn2619]

Well all I have to say is something is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. Personally I don't upgrade that often so the 225 for a system board that will get me down the road for another few years is not that big of a deal. I'm not upgrading every time the biggest baddest game playing tech comes out so my purchase at $225.00 paid for itself. I could see it going down maybe another $10.00 bucks or so but I doubt it since it will hit stores mid Dec I'm sure it's more marketing srtat to keep the prices as high as they can since this is the second most profitable upgrade season of the year. <--- I say second because more upgrades are done at the beginning of the school year in the last market poll I saw. But other then that I would say not untill Feb will you see prices like most are wanting on this type of board.

Pardon spelling and structure as this was done quick and easy at work.....

 

[chucky2]

gobucks- Yep, I understand what your saying! Supply and Demand can be a beautiful thing...or it can get ugly (for us buyers)....let's hope for our sake that it doesn't get too bad!

Burn2619- Yep, I understand what your saying too! Need I mention California Graphics USA and the Photon 100 HC?

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Chuck

 

[gobucks]

burn2619, did you already preorder this board? If so, how do you do it? There was no option to do so, or I probably would have. And yes, I agree, if you're not upgrading frequently, $225 isn't the end of the world. After all, I priced out my new PC, and even with that, it's only $1100, and that includes:
A64 3000+: $140
Zalman 7700-AlCu cooler: $45
Asus A8N-E SLI Deluxe: $225
XFX 6600GT Dual-DVI: $179
Maxtor Diamondmax 10 300GB SATA (16MB cache): $199
2x512MB Crucial Ballistix PC3200: $245
NEC 16x Dual Layer DVD-RW: $60.

And yeah, I don't upgrade too frequently, either, in fact my PC is an Athlon 700MHz Slot A with a GeForce 256 video card, so $1100 for a new PC is not too much, especially for one with such good upgrade and overclocking potential.

 

[Tanclearas]

I pre-ordered this board as soon as NCIX (Canada) made them available for pre-order. Keep in mind that the prices shown are probably not the prices the boards will sell at. NCIX has made it clear that they just don't know what the price will be. Basically, by pre-ordering, you are telling them, "I'm willing to spend up to this amount when they come in." Yes, it's true that they could just go ahead and charge that amount. Hell, why not charge that if you will still sell out when the shipment comes in. As someone said, this is simply supply and demand.

I had planned on upgrading my system around May/June. That was when both SiS and Via claimed they would have PCIe chipsets available. By the time June rolled around, nVidia was spilling details on their PCIe (and SLI) chipset. So, I figured, what the hell, I'll wait another month or two. One of these three chipset makers must be able to get some PCIe boards on the shelves. Another month or two go by, and still no PCIe for Athlon 64. The problem just kept snowballing from there. In August, Abit "releases" their K8T890 based board. I say to myself, "Finally. It'll only be another few weeks."

LOL!

I don't really care if NCIX charges me the $276 US they've set their pre-order for. nVidia, Via, and SiS have saved me hundreds of dollars by stalling my regular upgrade cycle of approximately 6 to 8 months! If anyone from nVidia, Via, or SiS is reading this, be sure to thank your marketing department for me! By the time the motherboard actually shows up, it will have been roughly 14 months since my last major upgrade (assuming it actually shows up before Christmas).

 

[Nyati13]

Originally posted by: chucky2
darkswordsman17- My understanding though is that while there'll be nForce4 motherboards, they won't have the faster Hypertransport bus in it...

...guess I've got to go find out if that really matters or not...

Chuck

The only MBs with the slower (800MHz) chipsets should be the Skt754 boards, which can only use an 800MHz HT Link anyway. The Skt939 boards (SLI or ULtra, or regular) should all be 1000MHz capable.

We'll only really know for certain when the boards are all available.

 

[slash196]

I don't even WANT an SLI board. I just want the Ultra, with NCQ support and PCI-e.

 

[Burn2619]

No I have not preordered my board yet my personal dealer will get the board for me at his cost and I will pay his fees plus shipping for about $10.00 more of the prive on the web but I have no worries since I'm not looking for a package nor am I in frett about the #shipment my board comes in..... All I have to do is pick up the phone when it rings and pick it up. I'm one of those don't upgrade for a long time and really bang it out when I do people. Granted I'm always buying little things here and there for my other vairous boxes the main box is sort of like family it sticks around for a while.

 

[stelleg151]

Arg. At zipzoomfly it says Estimate Delivery Time: 12/21/04. for the backordered MSI Ultra.

 

[stelleg151]

What happened to the Gigabyte, it looked so sweet as an overclocker and I thought it would be out first, and now it looks like the MSI and Asus will beat it, and I havent seen any evidence that they will be good overclockers. I am sad.

 

[gobucks]

yeah, I was kinda pulling for the gigabyte, too. Maybe they just wanna surprise everybody, or maybe the etailers just don't want to bother announcing it, since they probably figure people are looking for the Asus and MSI boards.

 

[DerKaiser]

XTreme Gear says they have them in stock, at least they imply it. It says "Hurry! Only 14 items available".

 

[flexy]

where did you see comparisons of the msi/gigabyte board etc ? Why do you think the msi/asus would overclock better ?

btw. these prices are irelevant since the board are really not available yet - and Asus is hyped and overpriced anyway ...

 

[chucky2]

Nyati13- Thanks for the info! I'll take your advice and wait for them to come out to be sure...

 

[Rudee]

Originally posted by: Burn2619
Well all I have to say is something is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it.

What it's worth, and what it's sold for are two different things.

 

[stelleg151]

gobucks check this out though, onepagebook at xtremesystems.org just get a reference MSI NForce4 Ultra board, looks very promising...
(I hope you dont have 56k..)

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