Nvidia Price cuts.

[lopri]

The pricing looks to be in effect already. There are couple of GTX 280's for $450 after MIR at the Egg.

Edit: Gigabyte has one for $450 without MIR. $450 for a GTX 280 is a reasonable price, IMO. When EVGA/BFG drop to the same, I may finally ditch my 8800 GT's.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814125200

 

[raddreamer3kx]

260 or 4870, please be honest, no fanboyism or "whats hot".

 

[sticks435]

If BFG cards are still 15% off when BestBuy drops them to market price, I am going for the 260. In the games I am most interested in (ME, Crysis, Lost Planet) it seems to be the faster card according to most sites. This is coming from my current 4850. I also prefer Nvidia's board partner's to Ati's.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: raddreamer3kx
260 or 4870, please be honest, no fanboyism or "whats hot".

Minor advantages in benchmarks aside for the 4870, these card will both give you the same gaming experience. Get whichever one is the cheapest. I'd probably lean slightly towards recommending the 4870 if the price was the same.

The only exception to that would be if you are an Unreal Tournament 3 freak, and think you would actually get some sustained use out NVIDIA's PhysX enabled UT3 maps. In this case, you would want a GTX 260.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
Might be the worst NV launch for retailers etc, but not for consumers. You have to take into consideration that this comment is from a bunch of guys who were probably all ready to gouge the hell out of GTX prices. So, they were a little disappointed.

No doubt it's good time for consumers. But it's indeed the worst NV launch as far as I remember. The biggest issue here is that NV's initial MSRP was totally off the mark. Say when those retailers tried to sell an overclocked 280 from EVGA for $699, they probably paid EVGA close to $550~600. (probably more than that) Apparently the GTX 200 series didn't sell well at all so they ended up with inventory, and soon enough we started hearing about price protection from NV, price cuts, etc. There still are $600 GTX 280's out there, which indicates whatever the contracts they have with NV and partners have not been resolved yet.

I don't know how much truth is in the quoted number, but whichever I look, it's a stark contrast compared to G80, which NV bragged about shipping over 1 million units within the first 3 months.

 

[taltamir]

right now though... the 4850 stabilized back at 200$ as well as the 9800GTX (the 4850 is the better GPU, but the GTX comes with a better cooler, you would probably want to upgrade the one on 4850). The GTX260 and the 4870 both stabilized at 300$, and the GTX280 is still priced up there, although can be seen for 450 - 500$. (i expect it to drop when the 4870x2 is available for sale).

But anyways. the big question right now (For me)... is what is better at 300$ (visiontek, lifetime warranty) 4870 or the GTX260 (XFX, double lifetime warranty).
I am gonna have to do some reading about that. Calculate power costs, etc.

 

[raddreamer3kx]

Originally posted by: taltamir
right now though... the 4850 stabilized back at 200$ as well as the 9800GTX (the 4850 is the better GPU, but the GTX comes with a better cooler, you would probably want to upgrade the one on 4850). The GTX260 and the 4870 both stabilized at 300$, and the GTX280 is still priced up there, although can be seen for 450 - 500$. (i expect it to drop when the 4870x2 is available for sale).

But anyways. the big question right now (For me)... is what is better at 300$ (visiontek, lifetime warranty) 4870 or the GTX260 (XFX, double lifetime warranty).
I am gonna have to do some reading about that. Calculate power costs, etc.

from what im seeing these cards are pretty much equal(some bechmarks show the 4870 faster in some games), I must say though the 4870 is a little more future proof with the ddr5 mem and dx 10.1.

 

[taltamir]

well, those two factors balance out the physX aspect... I think that physX and 10.1 are not significant enough to matter. By the time they will, the cards will be obsolete. Future proofing does not apply in a field where an item is obsolete in under a year. Future proof your house instead. (for example, my AC unit is 18 years old...)
I notice that the 4870 has a messed up powerplay implementation (no voltage reduction, only clockspeed, and not as much as the 4850), making it take more power. 34watts more in idle, and about the same in load, then the GTX260. Which, will cost me personally (based on my usage and electricity cost) 19$ more a year.
I like XFX the best of any company, with eVGA a close second... the 4870 has better AA scaling, much better. Which card is faster depends on the game though. I saw the 4870 win in more games.

I am confused >.<

 

[sticks435]

I'm in the same boat. Noise is much higher on the 260, but could be countered by lowering the fan speed at load for a temp sacrifice. When the 4870 was lower priced, I could deal with the ATI board partners, but now that they are the same price, I'm swinging back towards the 260. Having the evga precision tool is real nice, and I see that BFG now has a step-up program too.

 

[Aberforth]

ATI driver support has tremendously improved compared to Nvidia, while Geforce cards perform to their fullest potential so the drivers updates help very little. I think Radeon 4000 series has more potential to perform better with new drivers and also you get DX 10.1, GDDR5, Havoc etc- it is more future proof if you aren't a regular buyer.