Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1236
Price Guides February 2004: Memory and Soon-To-Be-Obsolete AGP Video Cards
by Kristopher Kubicki on February 10, 2004 4:12 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Welcome back to this week's installment of the Price Guides. Last week's Guide was actually one of our most read guides of all time. Give yourself a pat on the back. As always, don't forget to check out or own RealTime Price Engine, and our Vendor Ratings.
Memory continues to be a particular thorn in the PC market. Those of you who follow the enthusiast market particularly closely know that Winbond has totally run out of the BH5 chips. Unfortunately, it looks like they have also run out of CH5 chips as well and so we will start to see memory dry up that is based on those chips.
With that news, it's becoming more obvious that the dated PC2100 is on its way out. Most memory has been up over the last couple months as much as 10%. The price on Mushkin's Green (Value) modules is down this week, but this is more due to their recent changes in memory ratings. For those of you who didn't notice the name change a few months ago, this is Mushkin's new naming scheme:
Green - Value
Blue - Midrange
Black - Enthusiast (Formally called Level II)
For those of you who ski, you'll immediately recognize the same colors are used for identifying levels on a ski hill. They must do a lot of skiing out there in Denver.
We made some other significant changes to our memory listings. As you will see, most of our modules have a "Value" and "Performance" listing for each type of module. Hopefully everyone will be able to note the deltas easier with this clarification on memory types.
Continuing our analysis... It appears PC2700 is also on the rise. Several manufacturers have begun pulling back on PC2700 in favor of PC3200. PC3200 is here to stay for the rest of the year, and with some of the major sources of enthusiast Winbond chips drying up, it looks like prices might stabilize and climb slowly for some time to come.
If you are a new system builder, you really can't go wrong with PC3200 anymore. All motherboards/processors support it, and unless you need special registered memory for Opteron/Athlon64 FX, you have plenty of options. Two sticks of Corsair PC3200 256MB or Mushkin PC3200 256MB Black are both excellent choices for midrange systems. Don't forget to buy in pairs so that your CPU/Northbridge can take advantage of dual channel capabilities. For those of you who have KT600/400A/400 based motherboards, you can save a couple bucks buying a single stick instead since the older VIA northbridge does not support dual channel enhancements.
For those of you who wish to clock a little higher, Mushkin and OCZ seem to be good choices. Unfortunately right now we are only tracking OCZ's "Premium" (Value) line, but in the upcoming days we will be adding their Gold, EL and Platinum lines as well (so check back frequently). Check out Wes's more recent articles concerning DDR400/433/466 performance on some of these modules. If you know what you're doing, getting an extra 5% boost isn't uncommon by selecting the right memory. Since Corsair, OCZ and Mushkin rely heavily on those vanishing Winbond chips, don't expect their prices to start dropping anytime soon.
If you're looking for a quality, high-performance graphics card your buying decisions then take a look at a recent Q1 Video Card Roundup. Derek takes a good look at overclocking, thermal, and game performance on most of the recently introduced cards.
It appears news is all over the web concerning the newest GeForceFX 5500 cards. Supposedly, this card should fill in the immense gap between 5200 and 5600, but it is too early to speculate. NVIDIA and ATI have been completely silent concerning roadmaps, product announcements and future directions. Just in case you were wondering, there is probably good reason.
NVIDIA |
ATI |
15 |
15 |
5200, 5200 Ultra, 5500, 5500 Ultra, 5600, 5600XT, 5600 Ultra, 5700, 5700 Ultra, 5900, 5900XT/SE, 5900 Ultra, 5950, 5950 Ultra |
9000, 9000 Pro, 9100, 9200, 9200SE, 9500, 9600, 9600SE, 9600 Pro, 9600XT, 9700, 9700 Pro, 9800 Pro, 9800SE, 9800XT |
Update Feb 10: Of course, I get confirmation on the upcoming GeForceFX 5700LE a full three hours after publication. Anyways, mentally tally another check up for NVIDIA as this "lite" 5700 will start showing up pretty soon too.
Most likely you've figured out what the above table denotes. We haven't even touched on various VIVO/AIW and different memory sizes of each of these cards either. Don't worry; NV40 and R420 are just around the corner. And if you thought keeping track of 30+ graphics cores was difficult, wait until we throw PCI-Express into the mix as well!
Here are NVIDIA's week deltas:
The GeForceFX 5950's continue to be way too expensive for even the most rabid of gamers, but it looks like that is starting to change. Now that the cards are "only" $400, you could probably pick one up and overclock it. Or it seems you could get 90%+ of the performance with a GeForceFX 5900/5900SE for half the cost. It's almost a no brainer; if you want to go NVIDIA, eVGA's 5900SE is the choice to go with.
ATI is just as guilty as NVIDIA as far as high priced cards go. The 9800XT provides a slightly better overall non-overclocked experience than the GeForceFX 5950s, but is it really worth $400+?
ATI's tried and true Radeon 9700 Pro and 9800 Pro continue to be our high end choices. The 9700 Pro continues to shine even against the best NVIDIA and ATI have to offer. For around $200, we like the 9700 Pro just as much as the GeForceFX 5900.
On a more value oriented rig, it gets a little more complicated. NVIDIA's 5600 line seems a little underpowered and overpriced compared to the older Radeon 9600 Pro/XT. At publication the Sapphire 9600XT packs some decent performance at around $150, without totally sacrificing performance. For the price, it's the best card you can buy.
However, consider one quick side note when buying a video card with those tax returns. Upcoming Intel and SiS chipsets anticipate completely eliminating the AGP bus in favor of PCI-Express. Essentially, if you purchase a video card today and hope to buy a Socket 775 Prescott and Motherboard in a couple months, you will have to pawn that wicked Radeon or GeForceFX. It appears as if VIA's PT890 core will support AGP and PCIe, but whether or not the performance will match SiS and Intel's solutions has yet to be decided. Our final advice? Don't buy a video card now unless you anticipate keeping your rig for a long, long time.