The release of the new $600 MSRP 7800 GTX's got me thinking.
The last rig I bought was around late 2002, almost 3 years ago. Back then, creating a topnotch PC gaming rig mainly consisted of the following:
$200 9500 non pro & softmod
$80 athlon XP cpu
$80 motherboard
$120 for 512 mb of ram
total that up for $480
Now, 2 and a half years later, an athlon 64 is pretty much required IMO to get good performance out of your games. so now we are looking at
$600 7800 GTX (possibly $500 for a regular GT or lower)
$150 athlon 64 3000+
$130 for a good skt 939 mobo, maybe $100 for a cheaper one
$80 for 1 gig of valueram
this totals to $960. double what I paid in 2002.
Obviously there are many other factors involved, and perhaps it isn't a fair comparison. But prices for these GPUs IMO are getting out of hand.
The last rig I bought was around late 2002, almost 3 years ago. Back then, creating a topnotch PC gaming rig mainly consisted of the following:
$200 9500 non pro & softmod
$80 athlon XP cpu
$80 motherboard
$120 for 512 mb of ram
total that up for $480
Now, 2 and a half years later, an athlon 64 is pretty much required IMO to get good performance out of your games. so now we are looking at
$600 7800 GTX (possibly $500 for a regular GT or lower)
$150 athlon 64 3000+
$130 for a good skt 939 mobo, maybe $100 for a cheaper one
$80 for 1 gig of valueram
this totals to $960. double what I paid in 2002.
Obviously there are many other factors involved, and perhaps it isn't a fair comparison. But prices for these GPUs IMO are getting out of hand.