KatAnubis (Price Drop?) Hi Kat! I hope it was you that I remember seeing that the prices of graphics cards are going to be dropping in September because of new technology coming out. I was wondering if you knew WHEN that might happen? Is it going to be later in the month, or towards the beginning? I am going to be getting a new graphics card for TS2, and if the prices are going to drop, I might as well wait until that happens... Hopefully they will go down before the game comes out. Anyway, I was just curious as to what you thought. =) If it wasn't you, then you can just ignore this whole post! Haha.
It's a good time to bring this up. I actually was going to say something about it. The prices have already dropped. While some may go down a little, the vendors I've been talking to this weekend say that theirs at least won't be dropping any further. (I'm in the process of building a new computer and the only thing I'm waiting for is my video card at this point. Oh, and the OS that I'm getting from Microsoft.) If you've been watching the prices, they've been coming down rather slowly over the past 2 months. Cards that were $150-200 are now down to about $100. (Like the Radeon 9600 at Newegg.com.) Some of the really high end cards are really down too. Yesterday at Fry's I saw the Radeon 9800Pro, which had been $400 for about $250 and I think it was the same at CompUSA last week. So, now would probably be a good time to buy, at least from what I've been seeing and from what the vendors I've talked to have said about the plans for their cards. The price on the Geforce FX6800 is down enough that that's what I'm putting into my system. It's on the supported card list (unlike the Radeon X800) and the tests that I've seen on it have been pretty remarkable. It also has some stuff on it regarding 3D shading that even Sims2 isn't going to be taking advantage of yet. (But it takes a bigger power supply than a lot of other video cards and that requires more cooling. Lots of tradeoffs!)
That is JUST the news that I was hoping for. I didn't realize that the price on the 9600 at Newegg WAS the low price. =) I would have snatched it up last week! But I thought it'd be better to check out the news and see if it was dropping further. I'll go ahead and order me new card now! Thanks Kat!!
a heads up....newegg isn't the cheapest place to buy anymore. Do comparative shopping. Plus if you are going to spend that amount of money for a 9600, you might as well buy a GeForce 6600 (due out in september) MSRP: 149.00
Well, the one I found at Newegg was only 103.00 (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-320&depa=0), so I didn't think that was too bad. And now it's too late to cancel my order anyway, but thanks for the heads up!
Why are they going backwards in number? I just picked up a PNY Geforce FX6800 today. It was only $290 at CompUSA. I was astounded. I got one of the only 2 copies that came in today. (I was there on Saturday planning to get the Radeon 9800Pro. But this only $50 less than the FX6800 and when he showed me the fps tests that he had run, I decided it was worth it. He was using a 3.0ghz processor with a gb of RAM, and was running Halo. The 9800Pro got 51.3 fps and the 6800 got 81.1 fps. (The 6800Ultra and GT were in the 90-100 range. But they were also more than $100 more.) I'm glad I talked to the guy I did on Saturday because he seemed to know what he was talking about. The guy helping me today, however, was trying to tell me that they were coming out with a "slower" chip for the 6800 which would work on PCI. When I asked him if he meant PCI Express he said yes, and it was so that people could have a cheaper chip so they were putting it on this. I about died trying not to laugh. Poor guy was trying to sell things in the store and didn't know that the PCI Express was supposed to be *faster* not slower. I did explain that PCI and PCI Express were completely different and that PCI Express was much faster. He didn't seem to believe me so I suggested he talk to Sam. (As Sam and I had had a long talk about PCI Express and when it was going to make a difference to games and the rest of the market.) Tomorrow my husband's buddy who used to be a hardware technician at Intel is going to come over and supervise me putting together my new system. I just wish that my OS was going to be here, but my girlfriend's husband just picked it up today. It will probably be the weekend before she comes down for a visit and brings it. It's going to be hard having the system sitting there without being able to do anything with it! I'm more than just a little excited about this computer. My husband says that since I'm going to be actually putting it together myself and selected each component myself, that I'm now officially a computer geek. (I'd upgraded parts, but I always had my husband do the actual install.)
I don't believe PNY makes an Fx6800...maybe a 6800 yes Plus I'm surprised CompUSA has it too..even I can't get it because it isn't available for the channel to buy...and I get tier one selection too.
You're right. It doesn't have the FX out front. I hadn't noticed that. However, it says it's the CineFX 3.0 engine. CompUSA only had 2 come in. I got one of them. They had had others in which is how Sam was able to do the test on them. He had done the whole series of cards from Radeon 9200 and FX5200 on up to the X800s and the 6800Ultra. I wish I had asked for a copy of it to send to you, but I didn't think of it while I was in on Saturday and Sam wasn't there today. Needless to say, I can't wait for tomorrow afternoon when I get to put it together. I just wish I had my OS already, so I could get it all done during the week. But we have a lot to do before we can load it anyway, since we have to migrate everything from my husband's machine to my current one (since he's getting this one.) I have a feeling I'll be learning more about our network... Here's the CompUSA page. But mine wasn't that much when I got it in the store. http://www.compusa.com/products/products.asp?N=200454&Ntt=Geforce 6800&Ntk=All&Nty=1&D=Geforce 6800
LOL! By the time I got there (which was only one hour after they had arrived) they had already received a request for the second one! (I'm so glad I didn't wait until today to get it. I would probably have had to wait until yet another shipment came in.) If you're serious about it, you could probably order it from Compuserve directly. Another reason that I'm glad I picked it up yesterday is that I spent this afternoon putting the computer together (with the help of a friend who is a computer hardware technician who used to do this at Intel until they downsized.) We got it to the point where the next step is to put in the OS. I thought I'd have to wait until I got that from my friend at Microsoft, but Jerry has an Intel corporate copy and he'll put that on it tonight. When I get mine, I just install it over everything still there so that my own serial number is on there (and I don't run out of updates when they change the corporate number again.) I can't wait to see how it makes BodyShop and my paint programs work!!! No, I'm not the least bit excited about this! My husband keeps shaking his head, grinning and chortling. (Well, until we started taking his old computer apart to get the parts like the modem and the DVD ROM out of it. Then he started getting a bit testy. So we sent him off to go exercise.)
Radeon 9200 VS 9200SE What is the difference between the Radeon 9200 and the Radeon 9200SE. Went to Circuit City today and the guy couldn't tell me the difference. All I know is that 9200se is cheaper. So I guess the regular 9200 would be better.
My understanding (that I've gained from reading so many threads about this while doing research on my OWN computer) is that the SE stands for "Special Edition", but don't get the wrong idea, there's nothing special about it at all! They take the regular card and replace some of the parts with ones of lesser quality making the card not as powerful. I've heard many of the good technical advisors on these boards say stay away from SE cards if you can, there's nothing good about them at all.
Thanks ij Roberts. That's what I got also but u never can be sure. By the way everyone on this forum is really helpful. It really helps when someone gives u advice without being snooty and mean. Really appreciate and so glad I found WorldSims.
The SE stands for second edition. It's one that's made so that it has fewer features (so is not as good as even some of the lower numbered ones) but is cheaper (which suckers people into buying it instead of a card which is better.) For the most part, it's a good idea to stay away from SE cards. They tend to be disappointing.
