Video Card Pricing

[Graylien]

I was going to buy a Hercules 3D Prophet 2 64Mb the other day but I balked...does anyone think that the prices of the GeForce 2 GTS cards will drop due to the release of ATI's Radeon?

I'm in the unfortunate position of needing a video card within the next 2-3 weeks, I don't have the luxury of waiting anymore. Were it not for the time constraint, I think I might have actually chosen to buy a Radeon card. Oh well..

 

[Coki]

The prices will drop because there is more competition. Search around for the best price. Notice the prices now and check everyday to see if they are dropping.

 

[Graylien]

I've been checking prices ad nauseum, but was wondering if there have been any rumblings that a general price chop of GeForce2 cards was imminent. What I'm hoping for is a significant across the board price slash, enough to make me wait one more week before buying the card.

 

[DrWermit]

I think you will see most activity during the pre Xmas rush. From memory I think this started in October last year. Everyone will want your business then and the etailers have to impress their shareholders and backers during this quarter so they will attempt to 'buy' your business.

 

[Coki]

Why do you need 64megs of ram on a video card? NO REASON.

There will be new video cards out by the winter time that will be MUCH faster and better. So get the 32mb save money now. You don't need 64mb. It's NOT faster. There are no games that require such high amounts of memory. There won't be for some time. Many people have 4 and 8 meg video cards still. So the video game companies will not be making exclusive games for people with 32 or 64 meg video cards.

 

[ssjgokou1]

COKI, what's the difference between a 933eb and just a coppermine "e"

I heard that it starts with a 133mhz bus.

You do need 64mb of ram, because even some of anand's benchmarks show that there are enough textures in most of the timedemos that he uses to fill up about 40mb worth.

 

[Graylien]

Well, Coki, I never said I was going to use the card to play games.

This specific machine that I am building is destined for graphic research, and it's configuration must be frozen for at least a year (which means no upgrades at Christmas). Consumer parts, as opposed to professional OpenGL cards, also form part of the experiment and thus the choice is limited to cards like the GeForce2 or Radeon.

64Mb of memory is a necessity in this case. In two years it is foreseeable that everyone will have cards with at least 32Mb of RAM, and in two years this card will be used to project performance on systems meeting the minimum requirements . Although I agree that 64Mb is overkill for people wanting to play video games, trust me, I need all of it.