Hmmm... which one do I go for?
 
The Sapphire HD3870 for $249
Or the EVGA 8800GT for $249
 
TOUGH DECISION!
 

 
YEAH RIGHT!, this is even not a close decision.  EVGA has now lowered the price of the Base 8800GT to $249 which is basically the MSRP for this card.
 
Who in their right mind would buy a Sapphire HD3870 seeing that EVGA's card is the same price and is backed by a lifetime warranty and a 90 day step up program?  Plus take that big of a performance hit.
 
I think this is very good news because it means that all of the 3870 cards are probably about to drop to their MSRP of $219.  and if the 3870s drop in price by $30 then I guess the 3850's will drop by almost the same amount too.  Especially with the GeForce 9600GT coming in the middle of next month.
 
GPU prices are going to get really good really quick.  Supply is catching up with demand.  The next 30-60 days are going to be really exciting.  It is going to be a good time to buy a video card.

Wait 10 years and then it'll really be a good time to buy a new vidcard.
 
Anyways I'm glad the price is dropping, long live competition!

Well...you can actually find 3870s for $230, my friend bought on the other day, since the only 8800GT in stock at the time was $60 more. The cheap 8800GTs tend to be sold out, where as you can find 3870s close to the $220 MSRP price, the Gigabyte on has a Zalman cooler pre-installed and is only $230. Although it offers a bit less performance, it has a $20 price difference and a quiet cooler installed on it.

I do hope you are right, and I also hope that nvidia prices the 9600GT as cometetivly as they can, to pressure the market for a price cut in the VGA segment.

We will never know until the day comes but I think Nvidia is going to be very agressive with the pricing of the 9600GT.
 
Thus will likely motivate ATI to drop their prices to counter Nvidia's offering.
 
Things are going to get really good in the next month.

Sweet news, good time to get my x-fire HD3870 going then. Glad I only bought one card at first.

 
Agreed

---------------
E2180 @3.2Ghz + P35DS3L +8400GS (700/475 OC)  

 
The 8800GT looks good however I have a X-Fire motherboard which makes the 38XX an option I still have to consider.  I hope to run X-Fire one day.  However I am not going to pay $249 for a 3870 which I can get a 8800GT for the same price.

The real tough decision has always been, buy now, or wait for the next set of releases/price drops.

Nice.
 
I think within 2 years of the first dual core gpu's coming out the affordable gfx card will be more than enough for most games.
 
Just like ~2 years after intel released the C2D. There are finally quad cores in the market with more gaming power than we need for a long time.
 
Gfx will move a little slowwer, but i hope AMD/ATI have a kickarse dual core gpu and give Nv a good fight.

The HD 3870 costs $6.33 less (it has free shipping). It has a quieter cooler. It works well in Crossfire on X38 boards, beating the performance of 8800GT SLI in some benchmarks. 8800GT SLI requires a 680i or 780i board, which is not guaranteed to work with Penryn quads.  
 
Yes, the 8800GT is faster than the HD 3870, but still, I don't think the choice is that obvious.  
 
TBH I think the right choice will come down to whose drivers are better. I'm not very happy with the quality of nVidia's drivers, and ATI has problems too from what I hear.

 
I might have to wait a couple of weeks after my income tax refund for prices to drop. It's expected on February 1st, and I'd hate to buy high and have prices drop a week later.  
 
Looking through old Computer Gaming Worlds boxed in the closet, I saw an early 1996 ad for a screamin' PC right next to the Daggerfall review. It was a $2,000 486 gaming rig. Compared to that, today is a great time to buy. The amount of money I spent building a low end PC then gets me a midrange budget gamer's build today.
 
Will the desktop PC be around in 10 years? I'm talking about the architecture that's been around for over two decades. The way consoles are going, they could be as multiuse in the future as the home computers of the 80's. Will we all be using notebooks for productivity and consoles for games that are only rented via download? Or maybe my crystal ball's just broken!
 
 
 
 

When we all look back on this thread 5 years from now we are probably all going to be thinking how much the 8800GT SUCKS because GPU technology will be so much better then than it is now.
 
Did anyone see that Video review on Tom's Hardware about the slump of PC gaming?
 
http://www.tomsgames.com/us/site/f [...] slump.html
 
It REALLY surprised me.
 
Said that Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare only sold 80,000 copies of the PC version where as over a 1.5 million copies was sold on the XBOX360 in the first month alone.
 
That blew me away.
 
They also said that Crysis sold less than 100,000 copies in it's first month.
 
I hope that yipsl is wrong about everything going to consoles in the future but based on the 2007 sales figures it appears that way.
 
They also mentioned about Software piracy.  Which to me makes sense because if you are knowledgeable enough to build a gaming PC you can probably figure out how to burn an illegal copy of a game.
 
I don't pirate games.  If you don't support the developers they are just going to stop producing for the PC.  Every game I play is the original box version that I bought in store.
 
I really wish that new game Burnout Paradise was going to be available for the PC.
 
However I am still sticking with PC gaming.  You can get the same titles for the PC for $39 to $49 that cost $59 on the XBOX 360

Just wait till people start mass Pirating games for consoles.
Lol, u fight for NOD. "nod must aquire new lands"

the way it looks to me, consoles are getting slightly closer to PC's with each generation as well.... compare the current gen ones with the previous ones - there are a lot of features there that would in the time of said previous gen consoles be the sole premise of a computer with an OS

I like PCs much better.
 
You have the ability to upgrade your graphics instantly every 6 months if you really wanted to.
 
With a console you are stuck with the same level of graphics for 5,6,7 years or more.
 
That is unless of course your XBOX 360 or PS3 overheats and breaks down and is outside of it's warranty which is something you have no control over.
 
I love PCs and PC gaming.  You have total control over every aspect of your machine and can mod it at any time.
 
As I said a next generation console is only released every 6 years or so on average.
 
How often do you people on the forum replace your video cards?  Every 2 or 3 years I would guess?  Maybe even annually.  That is a huge advantage over consoles.  
 
Besides....you can't run two Xbox 360s or PS3s in crossfire or SLI mode.
 
Advantage: PC

NOD RAWKS!  That is who I go to battle with.  
 
I love their units too.  The Venoms and Stealth Tanks kick butt!
 

Here, most people are pc enthusiasts. So probably they replace their vid card every new series.