cavscout

I need to upgrade my radeon 7000. Would you buy a visiontech ti4600 from amazon for 339 with 50 rebate= 289 or wait for the new radeon cards? I don't know the specs on the new cards. Are they going to be faster?

Amator

I would wait. There's a lot of fun innovations on the horizon. ATI and Nvidia will innovate as always, and promising cards from Matrox and Creative/3d Labs. Personally, I'm waiting on the Matrox Parhelia.

ShoeBoy

I think the best bang for the buck right now is the GF4 Ti 4200. If you have to upgrade right now, today.
I never buy the high end of anything computer related. Always buy the one or two steps down. You save a lot of money and get a little less performence. And in the case of CPU's and Video cards, you can sometimes overclock to attain closer speeds to the high end stuff.

crankyman

$325 for a video card? yikes! http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merch...tegory_Code=VC

i built a whole system for a little more than that. dang....video cards are gettin' pricey!

cranky.

hypeiv

the best deal right now would be a gainward GF4 ti4200 which can be found for $133 shipped (by searching pricewatch)... but when doing full screen AA the new Ati is over twice as fast as a 4600 (anandtech.com). But nVidia's answer to that card should be out before the end of the year, and like it was mentioned 3d labs has a card coming out that claims to be amazing...

the Matrox Parhelia has already been released, i think

thejammy

I would try newegg.com they usually have pretty good prices on stuff.

I like the gainward products, very trustworth, and most can be overclocked.

agent2099

Don't get a 4600, they are overpriced for what you can get for a little bit less.

The best bang for the buck cards right now are the 4200 (can be had for about $130) and the Radeon 8500LE ($87 at newegg.com).

Amator

It's no more pricey than a G4 Ti4600, but the specs are a lot better:

Triple monitor support(150degree field of view in FPSs)
20.1gb/s bandwidth
256mb DDR VRAM
16x AntiAliasing (The G4Ti4600 has 4xAA)

It's expensive, but you get a hell of a lot if you're really into computer games.

Shuki

wait on the new radeon!! it will definitely, 100% smoke even the best 4600 out there right now! Man hang in there a few more weeks and get the r300. Said to be 15,000 3dmark right out of the box

crankyman

i'm just surprised by how much these puppies are.

everything else in the computer world seems to be getting less and less expensive.....but video cards seem to be getting more and more expensive.

but again, i'm into buying lesser expensive things and pushing them a bit (my 1600xp is running at 1.73 ghz right now)...guess it makes me feel like i got the most for my little bit of money.

or....i'm just a cheapass.

cranky.

joltaddict

As soon as those 9700s hit the shelves the 4600 prices should drop like a rock.

and hypeiv the Parhelia has been getting slammed in benchs/reviews. More expensive and less powerful than the Nivedias.

belboz

GPU's are getting more complex than CPU's. Both the R300 and NV30 are expected to have north of 100M transistors. P4's and Athlons have something like half that.

If I were going to blow a load of dough on a top of the line graphics card, I'd wait until the NV30 comes out which will probably be in December. It should be a little bit faster than the R300 and have solid driver support right out of the box.

joltaddict

Absolutely. Intels yeilds are (I think) around 90%, the NV30s yeilds are between 10-20%. That means out of every 10 GPUs they manufacture they have to throw away 8 or 9.