If GFX Cards cost too much, what's your limit?

Matth

So far, I've not spent more than £100 (UK), though since I'd also balk at dropping £50 or thereabouts on the latest game, I can be quite happy in staying with something one step above the minimum budget solution and replacing only if it should prove inadequate.

So I said $199, but I'd be inclined to go lower. If I had a Geforce 4 Ti, I wouldn't be upgrading it yet unless DX9/Pixel shader 2.0 was essential.

farkas

I spent 720$ Can before 15% tx's for my X800 Pro, only to turn around and flash it to a XT PE over a year ago.

Now I see starting at 655$ Can (Leadtek) to 684$ (Asus) a 7800GTX !!!!

I still think that my card and the new ones are overpriced for their usefullness in relations to the extra oomph you get when they are new and how fast they seem to loose that edge in a short time span !

I see now that Nvidia and ATI are dabbling with flip chip designs for future products. Hopefully, this is part of a larger plan to provide more choices and readily available inventory and overall lower cost for consumers !!

I'd like to see prices of high end video cards not surpass the 1/5 price tag of high end systems. As of now it's more like 1/4 to 1/3. Quite ridiculous the supply and demand right now.

tornadog

400 is my absolute upper limit. Anything above is just not worth the pinch.

Zelig

The most I've ever payed for a video card was around $225 canadian, and I'm not expecting to pay any more than that. There's just so much other good stuff I can spend my money on.

Sandok

Like?

CDsDontBurn

when i got my 6800GT way back when, i paid a little over $400 w/my employee discount at work. A little over year later, i sold my 6800GT for $200, and paid $150 difference ($350 total for those of you who don't want add ) for my x800xt pe.

TBH, i would pay another $500 for a gfx card, but i will wait at least 2 generations in gfx cards to make my next purchase to see a very worth while performance increase. I made the mistake of purchasing a card too soon when i got my x800

SFOSOK

A life, a house, a family, bills the list keeps goin on and on.

Falstaff

I am a cheap bastard...gfx cards are too G____am expensive..

Zardon

Didnt you buy a 7800GTX a while ago?

RobertBruce

I've spent $300 each for the last two. I would like to not go over that, but.... not sure i have a good choice, drooling over the gtx these days!

IvanV

The high cost of designing new chips and the relatively short time during which those chips bring money is a factor, but I don't think that's the whole thing.
I don't say that they hold meetings to discuss the prices, but there is a form of a silent agreement: when one of them raises the prices, the other soon follows, so they keep offering similar products for a similar amount of money. The marketing wars are on, but they can't bring victory to any side, they just help get a little bit more. I'm pretty sure that both manufacturers are sathisfied with status quo when they are both making profit and are only trying to increase it by slowly increasing the prices and not their market share, because that would involve too much risk. ATi did risk a lot when they didn't make a GF4 Ti counterpart and left the entire high end market to Nvidia for awhile until they came up with 9700Pro: had it failed it could have ruined them. That was the real competition that brought us a truly new and great product that meny people still own. But at that time ATi's market share was much smaller than Nvidia's. Today, they are both happy with what they've got and aren't in the mood for such "experiments". Rather than that, they'll keep upping the prices for as long as people can stand it.

dj_stick

tht was for his son iirc

swimtech

Theoretically...

If I were building a new fast rig today, 300 (oh, ok, 340) or so would be about the most I could justify to myself.

The most difficult part is determining what is going to play everything well for the next two to three years and balancing the present day feature set against that 'educated guess'. The price of longevity today seems to be rising overall. However, I'm very encouraged by ATI's new architecture in their X1K line - shoot - the hotfix to OGL for those cards is 30%+ in actual performance - like getting a new card for nothing! I'm sure they could make a X18xx like card for about that amount and that in a few months there will be one. So, the price of longevity might be peaking right now and set to decline from here forward - I hope...

Lowfat

I highly doubt i'd spend more than $400 canadian.

Son_of_Thunder

I said never over 450. Then I spent 535.

I'm a tool.

INSTG8R

Well considering an X1800XL 256 costs a hair over $600 US here in Norway I dont think I will be jumping all over one anytime soon, not to mention that involves a complete fresh build as my Sig indicates

phree

Well, $150.00 is as high as I can go. I'm still running a 9800np I got for $120.00 years ago. Don't really play games that much anymore so the 9800np is fine for about another year or so.

Even if I did still play those demanding games, would still be my limit. I mostly just play BF1942 and C&C games. Every so often I'll play Doom 3 and even it runs fine.

g35x

350$ max for me.....got my x800xl agp for that much

Geminiwave

so its a duopoly which is hardly better.

and by the way...the way our market is working right now, card company A comes out with a card and prices it higher than the previous level. Then card maker B has to raise their price to meet that or else people will suspect that the card is inferior. In a way they are conspiring. The fact of the matter is that the price of the top end graphics cards is relatively elastic. It can be as much or as little as the graphics card companies want and the quantity sold will remain nearly unchanged. Theres that elite group of enthusiasts that do not care about price at all. They'll pay whatever it costs for the highest end. In fact, if the price is high enough the sales might even go up because the buyers would feel special thinking that nobody else can attain such graphics glory (this is done by car manufacturers ALL THE TIME)

...Fortunately the top tier really isnt that great. Yes the 7800GTX is a wonderful card...fortunately for a fraction of the cost we can get lower end cards that just happen to be pretty kickass already.

Anyway I noticed something interested when reading up on benchmarks. The X1300 seems to be comparable power to the 9800Pro. That makes me sad as not too long ago the 9800Pro was considered awe inspiring. Oh well I still have a better graphics card than anyone I know in seattle, so I feel good :-D Everyones still got their $400 dells with integrated geforce 4s or intel chips.

BWX

Hmm, I still don't think they are "overcharging". I just think there is a high demand so that is what they are able to charge.. remember though how fast prices come down on new products once they are readily available, especially when newer and faster cards come out.

Believe me I would like to have a better card for less money like everyone, but the gfx card companies need to stay in business and they need to make profits in order for investors to come and invest..

In fact since they are publicly traded companies, by law that is their sole responsibility- to raise profits for shareholders.... and that in turn allows them to develop better and faster technology sooner.

Inflation over the years also plays a part in how much a new card costs now compared to a new card 4 years ago. Today's dollars aren't worth as much each as the dollars 5 years ago. That is continuous process too. All this really sucks for a broke mofo like me, but it is just the way it is.

Matth

The fact is, today's budget cards are the equal of many cards that were kings of performance in their time.

The question is, does sloppy programming and poor gameplay demend ever more GPU performance to make up for it, or:

Is the incredible performance of today's graphics cards driving a new generation of photorealistic gaming.

The other question, with the re-emergence of dual cards (SLI/Crossfire), reving a concept last seen with the old VooDoo range (voodoo 2 SLI, and the multi GPU models that died with them), are we close to hitting the wall on single GPU performance, just as the rapid emergence of dual-core CPUs suggests that the performace wall has been hit there.

GeneralClaymore

my limit would be 400-499, theres no way i would pay any thing over 500 for a gfx card. now a cpu i would.

Logla

I would happily spend top dollar on the latest card right now but I cant afford everyrthing else that needs to go with it ie, mobo and cpu for pcie. this is what pisses me off. I would easily pay 600 plus for a gpu but the hidden costs of system upgrades just takes the piss imo

Sandok

I agree with logla...

OpusP.Gladiator

Well.... It's finally happened... I managed to sell my old system for a decent piece of change and I can finally upgrade to an amd dual core am getting the x2 3800 manchester core for 317 ... My only dilemma was the mobo... should I consider the ati crossfire version of DFI's lanparty ut or just stick with the sli version because it's a 60 dollar difference not to mention the better ram I would have to get for the sapphire since the ram timings on it are smokin! check out the write-up at anandtech...
My real issue is in buying 2 cards for that amount!!!! I can get a white box version of msi's 7800gtx (w/430/1200) for 375... but obviously could save a few bucks by moving down to the gt... then I could possibly get 2 of those instead...??? suggestions would be helpful here, and soon thanks all