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Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1411
Price Guides July 2004: Video Cards and Memory
by Vinney Shimpi on July 30, 2004 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Introduction
Welcome back to this week's Price Guide, covering video cards and DDR memory. Ever since NVIDIA released their NV40 platform and ATI released their R420, we've all been waiting patiently for prices on the last generation of cards to drop, thus far, to no avail. Unfortunately, it seems that we still have a bit more waiting to do until older cards drop in price, or for NV40 and R420 to become available in any real quantities. In the meantime, both companies battle it out on the benchmarking battlefield and vie for your hard earned dollars.Similarly, DDR memory prices seem to be unrelenting these days. The last few weeks showed a rather small break in the rising prices and, in some cases, even showed some small drops. Sadly, those prices are back on the rise again for no apparent or good reason.
As always, be sure to visit our RealTime Pricing Engine to view these price changes, for better or worse, and see the movers and shakers for yourself.
Video Cards: ATI
This week prices continue to be quite normal for ATI's bleeding-edge X800-based cards. Even though ATI is working to put more on store shelves, and roll out their X600 and X300 cards, they are all still a bit too pricey to recommend in a guide that is focused primarily on price. Recent benchmarks comparing X800's to NVIDIA's 6800-series cards also show that it may be best to wait and see what's in stock as more DX9-intensive games are released later this year. Doom 3 seems to be a mark against ATI while other games such as Half-life 2 are still missing in action and not yet available to balance the scale, or tip it further.While you may be tempted to rush out and pick up one of the newer cards, we suggest giving the market at least a few more weeks, preferably a month or more, to figure out whether or not an X800 Pro or PE is worth your cash, or if NVIDIA may be the way to go. With the spotlight shining directly on the latest generation of video cards, it's easy to forget that there are other, very solid alternatives available if your system just can't wait for an upgrade.
The best value for ATI-based cards currently available goes once again to Sapphire's Radeon 9800 Pro, which has finally started showing up more frequently below the $200 mark without rebates or special sales being involved. Considering that price point, it may be possible to hunt around and find even better deals or special offers from various retailers. The Radeon 9800 Pro continues to provide very respectable frame rates in today's gaming titles without sacrificing quality or noise and without sounding like a blow dryer. The upcoming patch version of 1.2 for Far Cry promises to bring even more to the 9800 to help sweeten the deal.
Alternatively, the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB is a great option if high-end gaming is not a prerequisite. Don't take that the wrong way either, since this card is still capable of providing satisfactory performance and resolution in most current game titles. Be aware that once games such as Doom 3 and Half-life 2 are available, this card will most likely be the bare minimum when it comes to system requirements.
Video Cards: NVIDIA
NVIDIA is in the same boat as ATI when it comes to prices being prohibitively high on their newest 6800 cards. While the 6800 scored a hit against ATI with the latest Doom 3 benchmarks, it's still too early to tell for sure which will perform best in the long run. In short, be patient. Prices will come down and variants of the 6800 will be available in enough quantity to keep the supply-to-demand ratio at reasonable levels.If you absolutely must buy a video card right now, and can't wait for prices to drop on some of the newer options, BFG's GeForceFX 5900 128MB is a good choice. Fully capable in the latest games and reasonably priced are two descriptions that fit this card well. A great overclocker, the BFG 5900 can squeeze out those extra frames needed to keep your games running at high resolutions with the details cranked up.
For the non-gamer or occasional gamer, the GeForceFX 5700 128MB from AOpen gets the pick this week. Keep in mind that much like the Radeon 9600 series of cards, the 5700 will also likely be the NVIDIA low end for some of the games slated to come out later this year, so do not consider this card if you intend to take up gaming as a new past-time any time soon, unless you don't mind the lower resolution or frame rates.
DDR Memory
As mentioned in this guide's introduction, prices seem to be back to their uphill slope lately for DDR memory. Whether factories are cutting back on production, or manufacturers are planning to try making the push for DDR2 is difficult to discern. In either case, the price increases that we are seeing are enough to be noticed; in some cases, going up by as much as $40 for a 512MB stick.Since our systems still need memory, regardless of price, we've sorted through some of the currently available modules to find the best prices available. One of the better values that stuck out was a 512MB stick of PC3200 from Corsair. Being their XMS line of memory, overclocking will prove to be stable and, even at default timings, sufficient for even the most demanding user. While higher-end options such as PC3700 and PC4000 seem to be widely available, the performance increase is too minimal to warrant the higher cost unless overclocking is of paramount importance. For virtually every end user, and even the vast majority of gamers, the above recommendation should prove to be more than enough to keep your system's memory department happy.