6800 value/price, mystery,...

is it my imagination, or have 6800 card prices gone up?
Please correct me if I'm wrong...

There have been posts linking to 200$ geforce 6800 OC cards, but isn't
this a myth now? The cheapest I could find after combing priceline and
epinions.com(another great site) is 315$ for the 6800 OC, and 250$ for
the 6800 LE. I found a dead link on outpost.com to a 250$ 6800 OC, so
the price of the 6800 series seems to be going up!


It seems the business plan for nvidia goes:
1)offer new line of cards at extremely high prices to get the impulsive
rich buyers to bite(not a lot of sales here).
2)after they're done buying, and all the articles and benchmarks have
flooded the internet and magazines, offer crippled versions such as
6800 OC, and the 6800 LE, with only 8 bits.
3)the gamer sees the benchmarks and his jaw drops. He goes to
priceline or epinions or such, and sees someone is selling "that card"
for only 250$!!. But there is no clear system for labeling the cards,
and you practically have to buy the card before you are 100% sure of
what you're getting. Sellers like newegg, tigerdirect, monarch, etc
all bury their LE cards into the priceline categories for "6800", and
they also usually don't make it clear on their sites what you're
getting. Even if the card buyer does figure out what he's getting, he
can't easily find a site to review it's performance. Sites such as
tom's hardware benchmark or the others have already done their
benchmark reviews on that line of cards, so they've moved on. Only the
card buyer willing to invest much time will finally find out what the
real deal is, sometimes having to actually call the seller to confirm
exactly what edition of card they're getting - but that buyer still
doesn't know what performance exactly they'll get out of the card!
4)after the new mystery cards come out, the card makers/sellers see
what the demand is,...if strong demand they pump up the price to what
buyers will tolerate, as they are now. The demand went up as buyers
understood how to overclock them, so they raised the price.

The highend cards are actually only there to make the buyer think
they're getting a "modestly" priced card, as most sales are of the
"modestly" priced cards....until the highend cards become the modest
ones.

The ONE, and only ONE, salvation for the card buyer, regarding figuring
out the mess, is THE INTERNET FORUMS LIKE THIS ONE!

Chezwick T. Feeglebrox III esquire wrote:
is it my imagination, or have 6800 card prices gone up?
Please correct me if I'm wrong...

There have been posts linking to 200$ geforce 6800 OC cards, but isn't
this a myth now? The cheapest I could find after combing priceline and
epinions.com(another great site) is 315$ for the 6800 OC, and 250$ for
the 6800 LE. I found a dead link on outpost.com to a 250$ 6800 OC, so
the price of the 6800 series seems to be going up!


It seems the business plan for nvidia goes:
1)offer new line of cards at extremely high prices to get the impulsive
rich buyers to bite(not a lot of sales here).
2)after they're done buying, and all the articles and benchmarks have
flooded the internet and magazines, offer crippled versions such as
6800 OC, and the 6800 LE, with only 8 bits.
3)the gamer sees the benchmarks and his jaw drops. He goes to
priceline or epinions or such, and sees someone is selling "that card"
for only 250$!!. But there is no clear system for labeling the cards,
and you practically have to buy the card before you are 100% sure of
what you're getting. Sellers like newegg, tigerdirect, monarch, etc
all bury their LE cards into the priceline categories for "6800", and
they also usually don't make it clear on their sites what you're
getting. Even if the card buyer does figure out what he's getting, he
can't easily find a site to review it's performance. Sites such as
tom's hardware benchmark or the others have already done their
benchmark reviews on that line of cards, so they've moved on. Only the
card buyer willing to invest much time will finally find out what the
real deal is, sometimes having to actually call the seller to confirm
exactly what edition of card they're getting - but that buyer still
doesn't know what performance exactly they'll get out of the card!
4)after the new mystery cards come out, the card makers/sellers see
what the demand is,...if strong demand they pump up the price to what
buyers will tolerate, as they are now. The demand went up as buyers
understood how to overclock them, so they raised the price.

The highend cards are actually only there to make the buyer think
they're getting a "modestly" priced card, as most sales are of the
"modestly" priced cards....until the highend cards become the modest
ones.

The ONE, and only ONE, salvation for the card buyer, regarding figuring
out the mess, is THE INTERNET FORUMS LIKE THIS ONE!


I was just thinking today that the 6800 cards are getting harder to find
and definately more expensive. I think a factor of it has something to
do with the recent cock-up with the 6600GT cards not working and people
suddenly wanting a 6800 (i know thats what im doing and lots on the
nvidia forums)

I've been trying to get my hands on one but considering the performance
isnt that much better than the 6600GT for a considerable amount more
i've been put off a little.

(anyone know where I CAN get a reasonably priced 6800 in the UK?)

Dan

Don't know how well the 6600GT cards overclock, but the 6800s generally
do. Demand up so prices up too. Good time to lay low until prices
drop, if your graphics card is doing the job. Perfect timing of
graphics card release in tune with HL2 and such.

UK site from goodle search, might want to do your own thorough search
tho, or make your own Pricewatch-type UK site!:
http://www.pricewatch.dealtime.co.uk...+Cards&FD=1722

Of course, I meant "8 pixel pipelines" not "8 bits" when describing the
OC and LE

"Chezwick T. Feeglebrox III esquire" wrote in
message oups.com
is it my imagination, or have 6800 card prices gone up?
Please correct me if I'm wrong...

There have been posts linking to 200$ geforce 6800 OC cards, but isn't
this a myth now? The cheapest I could find after combing priceline
and epinions.com(another great site) is 315$ for the 6800 OC, and
250$ for the 6800 LE. I found a dead link on outpost.com to a 250$
6800 OC, so the price of the 6800 series seems to be going up!

Try some of the walk-in stores sites. Circuit City, Best Buy, Frys
Outpost.com etc. I find that the same eVGA6800 I have which cost $299
around Thanksgiving is still $299. BTW, I've no complaints about this
eVGA6800 at all. I would prefer the 6800GT but that's another $100 over
the 6800.
McG.



It seems the business plan for nvidia goes:
1)offer new line of cards at extremely high prices to get the
impulsive rich buyers to bite(not a lot of sales here).
2)after they're done buying, and all the articles and benchmarks have
flooded the internet and magazines, offer crippled versions such as
6800 OC, and the 6800 LE, with only 8 bits.
3)the gamer sees the benchmarks and his jaw drops. He goes to
priceline or epinions or such, and sees someone is selling "that card"
for only 250$!!. But there is no clear system for labeling the cards,
and you practically have to buy the card before you are 100% sure of
what you're getting. Sellers like newegg, tigerdirect, monarch, etc
all bury their LE cards into the priceline categories for "6800", and
they also usually don't make it clear on their sites what you're
getting. Even if the card buyer does figure out what he's getting, he
can't easily find a site to review it's performance. Sites such as
tom's hardware benchmark or the others have already done their
benchmark reviews on that line of cards, so they've moved on. Only
the card buyer willing to invest much time will finally find out what
the real deal is, sometimes having to actually call the seller to
confirm exactly what edition of card they're getting - but that buyer
still doesn't know what performance exactly they'll get out of the
card! 4)after the new mystery cards come out, the card makers/sellers
see what the demand is,...if strong demand they pump up the price to
what buyers will tolerate, as they are now. The demand went up as
buyers understood how to overclock them, so they raised the price.

The highend cards are actually only there to make the buyer think
they're getting a "modestly" priced card, as most sales are of the
"modestly" priced cards....until the highend cards become the modest
ones.

The ONE, and only ONE, salvation for the card buyer, regarding
figuring out the mess, is THE INTERNET FORUMS LIKE THIS ONE!