GTX 280/260 price drop has already started

[+Mystic MVC]

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?

[betasp]

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.

[+Mystic MVC]

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

[ViperAFK]

The 4870 still outperforms the 260 the price gap is a little closer now but the gtx 260 and 280 are still overpriced.

[Ci7]

280 GTX is disappointment where is my next gen GFX ! i will sue them !

roll in 380GTX !!! before i go and get ATI card lol

[+shift. MVC]

I think 4870 and the 4870X2 are still the cards to get. And for the budget minded probably 4850. If only AMD could do the same with their CPU's....

[Tuffgong4]

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.

[NextGen_Gamer]

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.)

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.

[ObiWanToby]

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.

[EnzoFX]

I too like the ATI cards, but aren't they a bit more power hungry?

[ViperAFK]

I too like the ATI cards, but aren't they a bit more power hungry?

Yeah the main problems with these cards are they run very hot and suck a lot of power.

[Kupo-Cheer]

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 July 4, 2008 by Kupo-Cheer

[+Mystic MVC]

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.

[torrentthief]

here's the latest best UK prices, not too bad. The gtx 260 is way overpriced tho as its slower than the 4870.

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/202096/nvid...i-4850-4870-de/

[NextGen_Gamer]

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).

[zerologic]

I'm waiting to see what Nvidia has coming after the 280/260. From what I read I would be disappointed.