Your first $300+ video card purchase

[Fardringle]

I paid a little over $300 a few months ago. For four separate video cards. Buying a video card for the cost of an ENTIRE PC (in some cases) is just silly to me. If you're a super hardcore gamer I suppose it might make sense since you probably don't have a life anywhere else to spend your money on, but every game I have played (including F.E.A.R.) plays just fine on my 6600GT that I bought for $100 new as part of that $300 purchase. True it doesn't show every tiny bit of "eye candy" possible in the game, but if I want realistic skin tones and every single pore and hair visible, I'll get up close and personal with a REAL interactive game called life.

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: John Reynolds
Orchid's Righteous 3D, a Voodoo 1 card. Cost me $300 in Oct. of '96.

Ditto, but for me it was a Diamond Monster Voodoo1 at Best Buy, I assume around the same time.

Rendition > Voodoo

HA HA HA

 

[SketchMaster]

X800. Don't remeber what I payed but it was $300.

Got it the day it came out. Was going to pick it up from Compusa and I was surfing their site when I saw they were doing a 10% off all upgrades for online orders that weekend. Typed in the promo code and it worked! Must have overlooked it when they added the cards to the site.

Next day they had in big bold text on the main page "DOES NOT APPLY TO X800 AND X800 PRO" Guess I wasn't the only guy that found that loophole.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Tom

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: John Reynolds
Orchid's Righteous 3D, a Voodoo 1 card. Cost me $300 in Oct. of '96.

Ditto, but for me it was a Diamond Monster Voodoo1 at Best Buy, I assume around the same time.

Rendition > Voodoo

HA HA HA

Errrr, OK?

 

[phaxmohdem]

Originally posted by: Rollo
Errrr, OK?

I think what he's trying to say is: Rollo > Rendition > Voodo

 

[TheRyuu]

First 300+ video card was the 9800 Pro 256 which I then flashed to XT (when XT became availible).

First $500+ video card is my dual 7800GT's in SLI!!!!! (pwn everything, espically since my monitors max res is 1280x1024 so AA here we come!)

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: BinZ

Originally posted by: Corporate Thug
9700 pro the day it came out

Holy crap....I know I got mine late in the game...how much was that thing going for??

-- Chuck --

i think i paid $330 for it on mwave

 

[Matt2]

I didnt buy a $300 card until my GTs and I really only paid for one, got the other as a gift.

 

[MBentz]

I bought two Ti4400s for around $180. I never thought I'd spend more on a video card considering the performance I got out of those suckers.

$470 for my 6800GT.
$475 for my 7800GTX.

 

[hans007]

i've never paid $300 for a vid card.

i have been a psuedo vid card reseller sometimes and have had 5950 ultras and 6800 ultras from time to time. got a voodoo1 for free back when they were out. but i don tthink i'd ever pay for one.

$300 (let alone $600 for some) is just too much fo rme to spend. rather buy an xbox360 or something and a $100 card for computer games. i guess im not hardcore.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

I guess my first video card was a 32 MB Matrox G400 that came with my P3 533 HP Vectra that I purchased new off of the uBid auction.

For the build I'm going to do this weekend, I picked up a Connect3d x800 GTO for $144. It was $179 at Monarch minus $10 coupon code minus a $25 rebate (received). If I receive a $5 PriceGrabber rebate then it would come down to $139. Hoping to mod it to 16 pipes and x800xt speeds. Not bad for $144 I'd say.

 

[Golgatha]

I may have paid more than that for my Gainward GF3 (64MB vanilla when it was first released). I certainly paid more than that for my X800 XT, but I sold that to pay for the X850 XT I purchased shortly afterwards (and got some cash too).

I did pay ~$500 for a 7800GTX awhile back, but I sold it to go back to school recently and got a 7800GT and made a little more than $125 cash. Even though I paid ~$375 overall for the 7800GT I have now; I like to think of it as renting a 7800GTX for about 7months for $100. Funny thing is my 7800GT overclocks to 460/1200, 24/7 stable and is pretty much equal in performance to my old 7800GTX at stock speeds.

Once I get through this graduate degree, I am going to splurge on a stupid expensive video card though. Might even do dual video cards a year from now.

 

[Zigrat]

orchid righteous 3d!!! I bought one in 1997 for 199, it was awesome! Still haven't ever seen such a revolutionary graphics card since then...

 

[Golgatha]

My first 3D video card was an 8MB Voodoo II from Best Buy for $212 with tax, and that was a great deal from the MSRP of $249 back then.

 

[Regs]

I think it was the 9800 at best buy for 300. Then I splurged 400 for a 6800GT.

A 100 dollar PCi-E mobo and a 500-600 dollar video card is looking kind of steep right now. And I wonder even if my 380 watt Antec can handle these cards.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

I purchased a BFG 7800GTX OC for $479 back in August. Upgraded from a 9600 pro

 

[Doctorweir]

Never spent $300 on a video card...can't justify it...I always go for bang4buck ~200 and overclock...

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Originally posted by: Doctorweir
Never spent $300 on a video card...can't justify it...I always go for bang4buck ~200 and overclock...

I generally agree but just went crazy this last upgrade.

X2 4400+ at 2640
BFG 7800GTX at 520core and 1414mem

Not normal for me and I don't see an upgrade coming anytime soon!

 

[Bartokomus]

BFG 6800 Ultra OC $419

 

[Topweasel]

Wow it surprises me how long I went without paying over $300.

My TNT2 16MB was $160
Gave it to a friend along with 50$ so he could turn it into a TNT 32MB version.
I then Paid $280 For a Geforce2 GTS from Asus (the Deluxe one)
Then I paid $250 to friend for what I believe was a 5 fingered Hercules Prophet II (the Geforce2 Ultra which was $500 at the time)
I then traided in a strait swap the Geforce2 Ultra for a Radeon 8500DV for tuner usage.
Wonce it started to go bad I found my dads reciept and took it to BB, after proving that it was covered for 3 years I traided in a Broken covered under PSP GameCube (which I bought for 199) and the 8500DV (which was baught for 299) and Got the 9800XT for like $50.

Then I built a computer from scratch and went all out. I bought a BFG 7800GTX ($490) a 4400+ ($550) and two gigs of ram (corsair XMS) along with a bunch of other toys.

So From the TNT 32MB till the 8500 I stayed near the top in performance and Jumped back up with the 9800XT, with out ever paying more then $300 for a video card. But unlike people around here think The top end video card has been since the Geforce DDR 64MB, been about $500 anyways I always stayed just a step down or so but the parts were their for that price. After ininflation its about $580, which just with this last gen has it jumped up to $600-$650. Condisdering that the Lowest end PII launched at a price of $900 I think every thing is leveling out. Now manufacturers can go all out and build those $4k-$5K machines, and everyone else can feel like they have SRT4 to their Vipers, Close enough and for a fraction of the price.

 

[redfoot12]

whoops

 

[otispunkmeyer]

sept 2004 £305 bought me a leadtek 6800GT AGP

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: apoppin
haven't bought it yet . . . all these were new . . . but off the cutting edge

Rage Fury32 ~$180

GeForce256 [trade for CPU]

Radeon 64DDR ~$150

Radeon 8500 ~$130

9800xt two years ago for $223

x850xt for $200 last month

maybe r700 or g90

edited

was it worth it ?

 

[redfoot12]

My first $400 card was a Visiontek Geforce 4 Ti 4600. at Software Etc. (Gamestop) when they still carried high-end PC hardware. I sort of cheated though because I used a buttload of trade-in-credits and worked there at the time so I got a 10% discount. So I paid $112 when I actually bought it (in late Feb/early March of 2001).

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: 1Dark1Sharigan1
First >$300 card I bought was the 9700 Pro . . . which was IMO worth it at the time it was purchased . . .

considering it will still play alot of games right now...hell yes it was!!