GTX 280/260 price drop has already started


Recommended Posts

Online retailer Newegg has already dropped the prices of some of its Geforce GTX 280 and 260 card and the price drop is a lot more than expected. Asus and MSI GTX 280 cards are already listed for as little as US$499.99 (?318/?252), but as if that wasn't good enough, Asus is offering a $30 mail-in rebate and MSI is offering a $40 one.

This means that you can get the MSI card for as little as US$459 (?293/?232) which is really going to put some pressure on AMD. Cards from other manufacturers seem to be selling for anything between $519 and $729.99, so the price cut hasn't taken effect across the board as yet.

GTX 260 cards haven't dropped quite as much in price, but you can pick up an MSI card for $299.99 (?191/?151) which is still a very good deal, although most of the other cards listed are selling for between $329.99 and $429.99.

Hopefully this price drop will follow suite across the pond in Europe as well, but time will tell if there'll be as much of a price cut outside of the US.

Fudzilla

This is just crazy news. What a price drop! It also looks like my 9800 GX2 I was interested in purchasing has come back down to its normal price again. The past couple of weeks it was at $429 and then on Monday of this week its price went up to $500! For whatever reason its back to normal now.

Don't you love competition?

I am planning to ride out my 8800GTS 640MB until the next round of cards.... unless the current gen gets down to ~$250.00 and can beat my GTS by 10-15fps in COD4.

Are you sure you want to use COD 4 to test? That game is usually the benchmark game in which most cards spank regardless if they are high range or mid range.

Unless that is really all you play, I guess ignore my above comment. :p

well this is going to upset all of Nvidia's partners BFG, XFX, (AIB) and they better get a 55nm chip out soon. The larger the chip the less they will get out of each wafer and dropping the price decreases margins...after the news yesterday about faulty mobile chips causing a huge drop in profits and a 31% drop in stock price this isn't looking good.

For so long Nvidia has held strong but the AMD - ATI merger is looking better and Intel's Larrabee will be interesting...

I have only had Nvidia GPUs but this is bad news as a business for them.

I am planning to ride out my 8800GTS 640MB until the next round of cards.... unless the current gen gets down to ~$250.00 and can beat my GTS by 10-15fps in COD4.

Umm, just thought I would let you know that the Radeon HD 4850 at $199 already does beat the GeForce 8800 GTS (640MB) by about 10-15 frames-per-second in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. (In the graph below, I'm comparing the Radeon HD 4850 to the GeForce 8800 GT as it performs closest to your card.)

cod4.jpg

But I still agree with Mystic that you shouldn't buy a card just for one game. Not that the Radeon HD 4850 wouldn't be a good buy based on its overall performance.

I went from an 8800GT to a 4870, and do not regret it. The 8800 is fast, but it lagged a bit at 1680x1050. I heavily play COD 4 and Crysis. UT3 sometimes, but that game was already quick! The AA performance of the 4870 compared to the 8800 is insane.

Unfortunately, both ATI's and NVIDIA's cards are super power hungry this generation.

Of course, I don't see a point in upgrading from my 8800GT until a couple more generations of graphics cards (I say a couple because the past few generations have all been released within 3 months or so of one another), or until a game I want to play is actually released that stretches my card to its limits. As it is, even Crysis runs just fine enough for me at my admittedly low resolution of 1280x1024. Of course, I won't be buying a new monitor anytime soon since this one is just fine enough for me.

Edit: Also, I'd be super ****ed if I had just bought a 280. It's worse than the iphone price drop, and yet people aren't getting their money back like they did with the iphone.

Edited by Kupo-Cheer
Edit: Also, I'd be super ****ed if I had just bought a 280. It's worse than the iphone price drop, and yet people aren't getting their money back like they did with the iphone.

They should technically have the 280 priced near the 9800 GX2 because of how similarly they perform or even cheaper because the 9800 GX2 out performs the 280 most of the time.

I went from an 8800GT to a 4870, and do not regret it. The 8800 is fast, but it lagged a bit at 1680x1050. I heavily play COD 4 and Crysis. UT3 sometimes, but that game was already quick! The AA performance of the 4870 compared to the 8800 is insane.

ATI thankfully went back to hardware-processed anti-aliasing through the ROPs with the RV770. If you can remember, the R580 (Radeon X1950 series) through the good old R300 (Radeon 9700 Pro) were all renowned for their amazing AA quality and performance. ATI not only had better performance with AA than NVIDIA, but their quality was also greater (due to ATI's rotated grid method versus NVIDIA's ordered grid; NVIDIA switched to a rotated grid starting with the GeForce 7-series). However, with R600, ATI decided to go with shader-processed anti-aliasing, meaning that the stream processors were responsible for handling AA duties. This is why all Radeon HD 2000 and 3000 series cards suffer such a huge performance drop once you enable AA. Now though ATI once again has the advantage in AA performance, especially if you compare the 8x mode (where the Radeon HD 4870 can crush even the GeForce GTX 280).

Unfortunately, both ATI's and NVIDIA's cards are super power hungry this generation.

Of course, I don't see a point in upgrading from my 8800GT until a couple more generations of graphics cards (I say a couple because the past few generations have all been released within 3 months or so of one another), or until a game I want to play is actually released that stretches my card to its limits. As it is, even Crysis runs just fine enough for me at my admittedly low resolution of 1280x1024. Of course, I won't be buying a new monitor anytime soon since this one is just fine enough for me.

Edit: Also, I'd be super ****ed if I had just bought a 280. It's worse than the iphone price drop, and yet people aren't getting their money back like they did with the iphone.

Yeah, I would not be a happy campy if I had just dropped $649 on a GeForce GTX 280 a couple weeks ago, only to find it now selling for $499 (plus a $40 mail-in-rebate if you get the MSI version).

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • I think there will be a 27H1 for actual users of 26H1 The 25h2 supports ARM too : Snapdragon X, Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite
    • Poll: Grand Theft Auto VI price predictions, cast your vote by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe After years of waiting, Rockstar will be solidifying the launch date of Grand Theft Auto VI with the launch of pre-orders next week. While the studio has confirmed a date for this occasion, it is yet to attach a price to the highly anticipated game. So let's see what our readers think it will cost at launch. The Grand Theft Auto VI pre-orders will kick off on June 25 for digital and physical editions. Unless some last-minute changes happen, the release date will be November 19, 2026, across Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. Unfortunately, there's still no information about a PC version from the developer or the publisher Take-Two. Now the question becomes, how much will Grand Theft Auto VI cost at launch? The game is predicted by some analysts to be the biggest launch of an entertainment product ever. With the amount of hype that has been built behind it and with ballooning development costs, Take-Two may price this Grand Theft Auto entry differently from other AAA titles. The current price of a AAA game is $69.99. That norm almost rose to $79.99 before calming down. But with such a massive release, Grand Theft Auto VI may be the game that pushes the boundary again. It's also possible that Take-Two keeps the price relatively low to increase the number of players that jump in early and keep them hooked on Grand Theft Auto Online to spend on microtransactions for years to come. Keep in mind that the below poll is asking for a prediction of the standard edition price, not a deluxe or any other special edition that Take-Two will introduce for additional benefits. Also, there is also the chance of the company splitting up the campaign and online portions. If you think that will happen, put your vote on what you think will be the total cost of the two. Poll Poll: How much will Grand Theft Auto VI cost? $59.99 $69.99 $79.99 $89.99 $100 or more Submit Vote If you have a very specific prediction in mind, sound off in the comments below.
    • Would you please fix your graphics. They are outdated and don't fit the article.
    • The Light of Life? We actually do glow till our Death, study finds by Sayan Sen Image by Rafael Rendon via Pexels A study by researchers at the University of Calgary has found that living organisms produce an extremely faint light known as ultraweak photon emission, and that this glow appears to drop significantly after death. The research was published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry in April 2025 and quickly drew widespread attention, leading to more than 200 news stories about the findings. Ultraweak photon emission (or UPE), sometimes called biophoton emission, refers to tiny amounts of light released by living cells as a result of normal biological activity. A photon is the basic particle of light, and researchers say every living system examined so far, including plants and animals, has been found to emit these photons. The glow is far too faint to be seen by the human eye. “I suppose it has a little to do with people being reminded of auras,” says Dr. Christoph Simon, PhD, one of the authors of the study and a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science. “It is a fact that living beings glow. It’s a very weak glow, but it’s there and visible with very sensitive cameras.” According to the study, the light involved is extremely weak, ranging from 10 to 1,000 photons per square centimetre per second across a spectral range of 200 to 1,000 nanometres. For comparison, a nanometre is one-billionth of a metre and is commonly used to measure wavelengths of light. Detecting emissions at such low levels requires highly specialized equipment. To study the phenomenon, researchers used electron-multiplying charge-coupled device (EMCCD) and charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras. These imaging systems are designed to detect extremely small amounts of light, including individual photons, while minimizing background noise. The technology allowed researchers to capture signals that would otherwise be impossible to observe. The team worked with the Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) in Ottawa to examine photon emissions in mice. Researchers took two-hour exposure images of the animals before and after death and compared the results. “We saw that the level of light that they emit – this biophoton glow – is distinctly different between living and dead animals,” says Dr. Daniel Oblak, PhD, an associate professor in Physics and Astronomy and the corresponding author of the study. The images showed a clear decrease in photon emissions after death across the entire body of each mouse. According to the researchers, this provided direct evidence that living and dead tissue produce different levels of ultraweak photon emission. “It’s a very small amount and it’s, of course, very tricky to detect,” Oblak says. The study grew out of discussions between Simon, whose research interests include quantum biology, and Oblak, whose work focuses on detecting light for quantum communication experiments. Quantum biology is a field that explores whether processes described by quantum physics, which studies matter and energy at very small scales, may also play a role in living systems. “Since I work as a quantum physicist on light detection for quantum communication, I thought that experimentally we have a lot of the tools to be able to detect the light,” Oblak explains. The researchers also investigated UPE in plants and found that the light changed in response to stress. When plants were exposed to higher temperatures or physically injured, their photon emissions increased. Chemical treatments also affected the glow. Among the substances tested, the local anesthetic benzocaine produced the strongest emission response when applied to injured plant tissue. These findings suggest that ultraweak photon emission is closely linked to biochemical and metabolic activity inside living organisms. Metabolism refers to the chemical reactions that allow cells and organisms to stay alive and function. Because these reactions change when an organism experiences stress, injury or disease, researchers believe UPE may provide a way to monitor those changes. The researchers stress that the glow is a physical and biological phenomenon, not a metaphysical one. Oblak says more research is needed to understand exactly how the light is produced and what information it may reveal about the condition of living tissue. “We must understand what that is to figure out what’s happening,” he says. “If we can understand how that relates to certain influences on the body – stress, diseases – then that could be used as a diagnostic tool.” The researchers believe the technique could eventually help scientists study health and disease without invasive procedures. Because UPE can be measured without adding dyes, markers or labels, it may offer a way to monitor whether tissue is healthy, damaged or alive. In plants, it could help researchers better understand how organisms respond to injury, heat and other forms of stress. While the work is still in its early stages, the study demonstrates that ultraweak photon emission imaging can provide a non-invasive and label-free way to observe biological activity. Researchers say the approach could become a useful tool for studying vitality, stress responses and other important processes in both animals and plants. Source: University of Calgary, ACS publication This article was generated with some help from AI and reviewed by an editor. Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, this material is used for the purpose of news reporting. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Year In
      hhgygy earned a badge
      One Year In
    • One Month Later
      AMV earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      AMV earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Collaborator
      ryansurfer98 went up a rank
      Collaborator
    • One Month Later
      Eurosoft10 earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      513
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      171
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      82
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      74
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      72
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!