Greed or New Tech Cost: Lets take a POLL

[Tomsawyer]

Ok the bullets have ceased fire and the mighty 3DFX has fallen to the underdog NVIDIA. I recall just last year the top end video card(s) where around 250 dollars U.S. But now here comes GE3 and top end cards are up near 500-600 U.S. Now I know it costs money to field new technology. But did it REALLY cost that much more to push video cards to the next level? Seems to me if that was true CPU chips would be up around a grand a piece yet hmmmm there are still 2 main companies duking it out for our dollars. So I would like to know what do you all feel? Is it Greed or is NVIDIA justified by claiming the new chips just cost more? I myself feel its greed and will hang on to my prophet till someone can show me some proof to justify a new high end card to complement my 1.33 aka 1.5 AMD system

 

[floyd]

my bro is a software engineer for HP and he gave me a bit of advice - take this with whatever grain of salt seems good to you...........every year, the vid-cards keep upping the ante, and its not suggested to move w/it cuz in the next six months, that same card will drop about 25% in price or more.........at that point , you can buy the high-end card for the same price as the low-end was six months earlier or at least get close...................personally, sounded good to me - i have a geforce2 MX and will eventually get an ultra since the price is getting about right for it...........


soyo sy6BA+III @ 133mhz fsb
pIII 550e @ 733 mhz
geforce2 MX
192 MB pc133 ram
soundblaster live value
****Good 'nuff for most stuff

 

[Fro]

the geforce 3 is costing 350-400. i wonder why so many ppl are intent on still saying it costs 5-600 bucks when it doesnt...

 

[Shadow ÒÓ]

Huge 3DFX fan...and when the 5500 was going to be released it was supposed to be near $500.........when it was finally released it was more like $300.......the VooDoo6 was due and was going to be near $700 but that was all smoke and mirrors to impress the public and never came about.

Truth be told........if you stayed 2 steps behind technology, you'd be far cheaper as well as up to date. Nothing is released in the "new" version of video cards as far as software.......it's designed to keep up with the new software hopefully released. Notice the word "hopefully" here. What you buy with the "latest and greatest" now is the "hopes" that software will run on their platform.

I still run a 5500 which is exceptionally good for me, and I'm saving $500 or more from anyone who's getting the "best". When I DO upgrade, it'll be to something that has been out for a year or so, and will do everything I want it to.........

Don't buy the best........you're only funding hopes...and may never see the "cool features" they hope will someday be the standard.

 

[JaY_III]

in canada the GeForce 3 does cost around 500-600... then again our dollar is lower than the US dollar so... convert it to US funds and its about 400

 

[WyrmMaster]

I agree that one should stay a step or step and a half behind ther performance curve. Almost peak performance for about half the dollars.

 

[Morphoius]

i have a GF3, and sure prices will drop 25% over the next year, but when they have droped and you go buy it i will have bought the GF3 ultra. if you insist on saving money and staying behind the proformance curve then that is your choice, and i don't respect it, but it is your choice.

it seems to me there are three ways to upgrade
1. always have the latest and the greatest. buy the best every one or two product cycles and resell your old hardware when you get something new.

2. buy the latest and the greatest when you need to upgrade, but only upgrade when your current hardware is really slowing you down.(at least you have braging rights every now and then) alternate what parts of your system you upgrade

3. buy the cheapest thing out there that will do what you want. upgrade every two or so product cycles or stay away from the new games becuase they are unplayable on your hardware.

my advise is this, when buying new hardware don't contrast the price of the upgrade, contrast the cost of the entire computer with the proformance increase you will see. sure the 64 MB GTS (the slowest thing i could posibly recomend for a gamer) costs about 40% of the GF3, but puting the GF3 in your 1700$ box instead of the GF2 GTS is only a 12% inceace in value of the system compared to well over 12% is gaming benchmarks(which is the only thing gamers use a fast system for). If you were buying a new box would you spend 12% more for 35% proformance increase? i hope so.

The GF3 is a new chip and design and as i personaly think it is perhaps underpriced and should be 500-600$ US instead of 350$. What AMD and NVidia have done by not scaling up their prices so fast is given the everyday person the ability to have the best box possible with the longest life with a managible cost increase.