When will be a good time to buy a video card?

[justlnluck]

Hi, I am interested in upgrading my entire system. But I have been waiting for prices to settle a bit. I'd hate to buy an 8800GT 512MB today for $270 and see it at $200 a month from now. When is Nvidia going to officially announce/launch the 9600GT? And is it worth waiting until Feb or March? ATI's offerings seem weak compared to the 8800GT or out of my price range.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I am also looking for a new vid card and am wondering too about when Nvidia will release their new cards.

 

[taltamir]

AMD pretty much collapsed. the market is getting worse by the day... in 2009 AMD will come out with fusion. A cpu/gpu hybrid chip. If it is as efficient as they hope then they will be back in the game, and the market will be good again. But otherwise you better buy now as things are just deteriorating.

On the other hand. nvidia is about to come out with the geforce 9 series, with which they MIGHT choose to go for the kill. If that happens you will get very attractive GF9 cards at awesome price/performance ratio. But I am only seeing a 50/50 change of that happening.

CPU wise, intel just came out with the e8400. It annihilates everything. 209$ @ mwave.com (lowest pricegouge i found, only 30$ above MSRP, get em while they last or you will be stuck with 230$ from newegg, OR MORE)
I ordered one five minutes ago

 

[Cheex]

I also want to know this.

I'm waiting for the 9800GTX or 9800GX2, whichever turns out the more attractive one at release time....but...
I may also just get an 8800GT for the time being.

 

[Syntax Error]

You could get an EVGA 8800GT now and step-up to a 9-series, provided it will come out within 3 months.

 

[justlnluck]

So you think the price gouging will get worse? We won't see MSRP in the foreseeable future?

 

[taltamir]

Price gouging results in MSRP gouging. The MSRP for the 8800GT increased by 50$ on the first day on most manufacturers. The NDA lifted at 6AM... I checked it then and it was 220$ or so... it ended up being 279$ the next day, and stayed at that price point since (I have seen some selling for as low as 250$, but those are now considered below MSRP).

The 3870x2 is finally here and it outperforms the ultra, between a lot and a little, depending on the game's driver support (its still CF, with all the drawbacks). the biggest issue is that you cannot use two of them in CF. So the real benefit of that card is that its crossfire for people with a mobo that has only one PCIe slot (it still takes extreme amounts of power and heat).
Gauging its impact will be hard. It might bring down prices, it might not, and nvidia is gonna release their own X2 card to counter.

This was the last trick in AMD's graphics sleeve until 2009 as far as I am aware.
So no, I do not expect gouging to stop. I might be wrong, but I am not gonna bet on it.
I DO however wait for the GF9 cards because they are supposed to arrive soon. And give more performance, the G92 is simply not powerful enough, being as powerful as last year's high end.

And CPU-wise intel is just rolling faster and faster. with the e8400 being out now. giving 5%-10% faster per clock per core performance then the previous core2, can be OCed from 3 to 4ghz by about anyone, and SSE4 instructions giving 80% performance boost for divx. xvid. adnd h264 encoding, with more programs to use it soon. (encoding was previously dominated by quad core processors, now only a SSE4 quad cores can compete with it... so it pretty much beats most quad cores at almost any task). Oh I forgot, it also takes 1/3 the power that AMD does.
I was lucky, I got the e8400 at only a 30$ price gouge (209 instead of 181)... A few days after release and already most places are selling it at 230$ (50$ over). some running out of stock.

 

[ZoNtO]

Just wait a month for the ridiculous GT/GTS rush to end

 

[Piuc2020]

The 8800 cards are pretty old and they are good up to 1600x1200 in today's games if you exclude Crysis, it's been a while, a 8800GT won't be a bad buy but according to a roadmap I read on HardOCP nvidia might be coming up with the 9800GX2, a 9800GT and a 9600GT but I'm not sure if the cards are a revolution in performance (like a new gen should be) or just a refresh of the 8 series, the 9800GX2 is dissapointing, it's just two G92 on one card.

 

[dileepsv]

Originally posted by: Syntax Error
You could get an EVGA 8800GT now and step-up to a 9-series, provided it will come out within 3 months.

so..are u saying that if we hav an eVGA 8800 GT as of right now, we can send it back to them and pay whatever money is needed extra to receive a 9800 wen it comes out ?

or am i just dreaming?

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: ZoNtO
Just wait a month for the ridiculous GT/GTS rush to end

its been going on for two months and a day, do you think it will end anytime soon? The market is hungry, its been too long since a refresh and there is no competition.

And in a month or two the 8800 wouldn't matter because the 9 series will arrive, and you will have a GF9 rush... I know i am ordering one on the first day.

Originally posted by: dileepsv

Originally posted by: Syntax Error
You could get an EVGA 8800GT now and step-up to a 9-series, provided it will come out within 3 months.

so..are u saying that if we hav an eVGA 8800 GT as of right now, we can send it back to them and pay whatever money is needed extra to receive a 9800 wen it comes out ?

or am i just dreaming?

Yes, but there is no cross shipping, and usually its only to stock versions (which is actually good) and supplies are limited... so its send in your video card, and they will send you the other one "whenever"... If you even have the option to trade in to the card you want.

You are better off buying a new one and selling the "old" one on ebay from what i hear.

 

[dileepsv]

yea..itd be worse than MIR

 

[krnmastersgt]

nVidia's cards follow a pretty simple pattern where the entusiast model of one series is around or higher than twice the performance of the previous enthusiast model, only time that hasn't been true was from the 5-6 series I believe, but as it is the 9 Series will blow away AMD from the gpu market, only hope that company has is that because they appeal to the lower/midrange consumer in terms of price and performance. I would wait a few months if I were you, it's why I bought the 8600 GT XXX, just something to hold me over till the 9 Series is out