When will we see the the return of the great budget gaming cards??

[subbytna]

Too true. People are cursing AMD and Nvidia with their mouth, while their hands are busy opening up their wallet and handing the cash over. Like the GTX480 was launch at a ridiculously high price, and people refused to buy it (along with the exeggeration about the heat)...so what happened? They slashed the price...and it wasn't by only a little neither.

OCUK are also to blame


With their "what a bloody silly deals" the younger members, who live with mum and dad and have money to spend, are fodder for teh OCUK marketing team absolute wet dream for them

 

[andybird123]

I was waiting for 660ti, hoping to get it for less then £200.. even that seems a lot to me tbh when you can get a console for less. Am borderline now as to spend money on another graphics card or just switch to console gaming for good...

if you like playing LEGO BF3 and LEGO Batman and LEGO Skyrim then yeah get a console

 

[C64]

Yea I have £150 burning a hole in my pocket with nothing worth buying brand new at that price I am going second hand 6950/6870/7850 agreed there is no value happening anymore no way I am paying £200 for a medium range card that isn't even that great anyhow.

The 6970 is better than the 7850 which says it all.

 

[Rusty0611]

The 6970 is better than the 7850 which says it all.

At stock, yes, but the 7850 will overclock up to stock 7950 levels of performance.

That's where its excellent value for money comes from.

 

[MichaelM]

I think the future of "great budget gaming" is with the integrated GPU's like on Llano/Trinity.

 

[ubersonic]

The 6970 is better than the 7850 which says it all.

You mean the same way the 5970 was better than a 6850? the 7850 may not be as fast at stock clocks as a 6970 but it produces less than 2/3 the heat, uses less than 2/3 the power and in the case of my Sapphire version is inaudible at idle and like mentioned will OC up to stock 7950 (pre bios upgrade) levels.

 

[Marine-RX179]

I think the future of "great budget gaming" is with the integrated GPU's like on Llano/Trinity.

Yea? How many years we have to wait until they can run demanding games at 1920 res with decent frame rate? I certain wouldn't want PC gaming with proper hardwares become more expensive every gen and turn into only luxory for the riches, while only affordable Llano/Trinity to become only competition to game consoles' level that barely offer better performance...we simply don't need console gaming on PC.

 

[PorkPieCat]

this gen's pricing's cynical and both sides have been hiding behind an excuse about low 28nm yields from tsmc. but nvidia admitted wafer production will be up by december so this shenanigans ought to end soon. isn't 28nm supposed to be cheaper to produce than 40nm? with any luck, next gen will more than make up for this one. unfortunately my igpu won't hold me over, and thanks to this gen's prices, last gen's haven't dropped - 6850 was £90 a while ago but they're now ~£120, so that kind of gives me no choice but to buy gtx 6xx/ hd 7xxx.

anyway hopefully with 8xxx/7xx there won't be any more £450 launch gpus (7970), phantom products designed to make "cheaper" offerings look good (680), or more of both sides clinging on to greedy prices with token $10-20 discounts and free games that nobody plays. green and red complimented each other this gen with similar prices and performance, but drivers and features that are different enough to explain price differences between the 6xx and 7xxx cards. both sides are clearly making a killing :/

 

[onechop]

I think i will stick to my SLI 9800GTX+s for now lol.

 

[Marine-RX179]

anyway hopefully with 8xxx/7xx there won't be any more £450 launch gpus (7970), phantom products designed to make "cheaper" offerings look good (680), or more of both sides clinging on to greedy prices with token $10-20 discounts and free games that nobody plays. green and red complimented each other this gen with similar prices and performance, but drivers and features that are different enough to explain price differences between the 6xx and 7xxx cards. both sides are clearly making a killing :/

Yea? Just wait for AMD to rush their 8970 to the shelfs to compete against GTX680 and launch at £500 claiming "GTX680 beating performance" for it...after all, they did that with 7970 vs GTX580. They seem to think it is fine to fight against a year old card, and beating it justify a price premium. And with that the overprices set, Nvidia would competing against AMD following their ridiculous pricing, just like this gen.

 

[Gregster]

You will not be able to buy a new gen of card (Top end) for under £400 at launch. This is one statement I am confident of being correct on.

 

[llamadal]

I have to agree with Grester, which is a lot of cash to part with - but if you want the latest shiny new thing - you are going to have to pay that premium.

6 months down the line and I can get my 680 £20 cheaper... while the card I sold to fund the bulk of it (580) resell cost dropped quite a bit.

 

[mrbios]

I'm willing to bet we never see another card like the ATi 9500 non pro edition that could be unlocked to become a 9700 pro, those were the days.....

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I'm willing to bet we never see another card like the ATi 9500 non pro edition that could be unlocked to become a 9700 pro, those were the days.....

The 6800LE was great value if it unlocked - I had one which unlocked to 16 pipelines from the 8 which were enabled on the card. This was the same configuration as the 6800GT.

 

[Johnz0r]

Geforce 4 Ti 4200 was the best price: performance ratio probably ever.

Although looking at it now my 7850 was a cracking buy at £180 and can give me GTX 580 speeds. Still not as good as the Ti 4200 back in the day

 

[psychodil]

Yeah the ti4200 was great value for money. As was the 8800GT and the 9500pro>9700. I have owned all 3 (tears in my eye )

 

[MooMoo444]

8800GT got me into serious gaming. I hope they bring out more similar versions, GPU's are getting pricey.

 

[KraniX]

It's not a great situation is it, and the price of cards had been pushed up in advance for the 660ti being released. I was tracking the price of a number of cards (primarily on OCUK but a couple of other sites too) and the 570 could be had for £185 but this increased to £200 in quite a short space of time.

The 7850 for £165 looks a pretty good deal and even at stock will give me an average increase of around 30% over my 5850, which goes up to an average of 40% if you include Civ V and StarCraft II.

 

[andybird123]

the 570 was on special offers everywhere due to rebates on offer from nvidia to clear 570 stock - those offers are now not available so retailers have to try to sell them at the normal margin, but this is all EOL stock

 

[ubersonic]

GF3 is my all time fav price/performance card, it wasn't the cheapest but it was dominant for well over a year which is an eternity in the GPU market.