Any ideas when the price of graphics cards will start dropping?

[eastyy]

Hoping to buy a x800 xt or a x850xt agp.But it still seems the prices are quite high.With the launch of the geoforce 7800 i would have expected ati to lower the prices but that does not seem to have happened.Anyone have any ideas when the prices will go down?


Of course if anyone has one they would sell me PM me

[Hohum]

Not so sure about price drops on AGP cards... reason being that neither ATI or Nvidia will be releasing new models on AGP now (supposedly). So in my opinion, the fastest cards for AGP prolly won't be reduced in price much.. simply because they are the fastest AGP cards you can buy.

[Digfox]

Have an X800XL that's soon to be out this PC, but it's a PCI-Express. The AGP platform just hasn't got the choice for upgrades as ATI and Nvidia concentrate their cards on PCI-Express. Depending on your platfom it my be wise to bite the bullet and get a new PCI-Express Motherboard.

[eastyy]

Annoying as my current motherboard is not that old

Hopefully i can get a second hand one of ebay for a decent price

Been looking at benchmarks seems it would be the x850xt x800xt x800 xl the ones to get (not really a nvidia person)

[Digfox]

Just as a guide from Overclockers...

Connect3D ATI Radeon X800 XT 256MB DDR3 VIVO TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-023-CO) = ?252.57
Total = ?252.57

or

Sapphire ATI Radeon X800 GTO? 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-101-SP) = ?156.22 'This Week Only'
Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS) = ?70.44 'This Week Only'
Total = ?226.66

...for what would be very similar performance levels (within single % points either way).

[eastyy]

Thanks for that mgear i never thought the PCI versions would cheaper then the AGP but they are.

Well it seems logical then to get a new motherboard and a graphics card

will changing the motherboard increase the performance?

[Magnakai]

To be honest, unless you're using greatly out of date hardware, it probably won't impact it much.
However, since you'll be plugging in your new graphics card at the same time, you probably won't care.

[Digfox]

A motherboard upgrade (i.e. Nforce 3 to Nforce 4 chipset) will usually give very negligible performance increase - everything else remaining the same. But upgrading a Gaphics card would give you a much bigger boost.

More commom with a motherboard upgrade is that you'll get new features (i.e. Sata 2, Raid, PCI-Express, SLI or Crossfire capability etc).

[eastyy]

Do pci express motherboards stil have IDE ?

[Digfox]

Yes. Mine's a DFI LanParty Nforce 4 Ultra-D and yep IDE and SATA ports. Most of the others will as well, including the Saphire Crossfire you are looking at.