Hold Off On That New Video Card....
Demiurge
Posts: 10,874
NV40 & R420 cards are supposed to be coming out this spring.
It is supposed to DESTROY the current cards on the market by almost 2 fold. Including the latest ATI monster, 9800 XT Pro...
This is what I was talking about in the other thread. These companies are slowly releasing product in 6 month increments. The technology is nominally better and sometimes much more progressively better each time.
They'll hit you for $500 on their latest and greatest and the kill that card with a new one 6 months later. It happened to me with my GeForce4 Ti-4600. Those were the next generation cards at the time and the latest GeForce cards and ATI cards are the butt end of the last generation of cards.
These NV40's and R420's are the next generation in video gaming.
nVIDIA & ATI aren't talking these cards up AT ALL because they don't want to cannibalize on current sales.
The big new thing with these guys is the emphasis on GPUs. They are going to start to become like the CPU in which the race is speed rather than increased visual technology. So basically there isn't going to be a huge difference in what the new cards can support from the $99 - $500 range other than speed and options.
Look it's a game with these companies...I'm trying to give you guys a heads up on all this stuff so you don't spend $2000 on video cards in the next 3 years or so. I made those stupid decisions in the past and I'm starting to find that it's best to be on the back to middle of the technology train. Those cards you just spent $500 on are going to be $150 in 6 months, guaranteed...so you may want to think about waiting on those cards for that long. Otherwise you're just wasting cash that you could put towards these new guys a year down the road when they are at the $200-$300 range.
I do feel bad for those who spent a lot on their new cards because of the huge technology shift we're about to see.
It is supposed to DESTROY the current cards on the market by almost 2 fold. Including the latest ATI monster, 9800 XT Pro...
This is what I was talking about in the other thread. These companies are slowly releasing product in 6 month increments. The technology is nominally better and sometimes much more progressively better each time.
They'll hit you for $500 on their latest and greatest and the kill that card with a new one 6 months later. It happened to me with my GeForce4 Ti-4600. Those were the next generation cards at the time and the latest GeForce cards and ATI cards are the butt end of the last generation of cards.
These NV40's and R420's are the next generation in video gaming.
nVIDIA & ATI aren't talking these cards up AT ALL because they don't want to cannibalize on current sales.
The big new thing with these guys is the emphasis on GPUs. They are going to start to become like the CPU in which the race is speed rather than increased visual technology. So basically there isn't going to be a huge difference in what the new cards can support from the $99 - $500 range other than speed and options.
Look it's a game with these companies...I'm trying to give you guys a heads up on all this stuff so you don't spend $2000 on video cards in the next 3 years or so. I made those stupid decisions in the past and I'm starting to find that it's best to be on the back to middle of the technology train. Those cards you just spent $500 on are going to be $150 in 6 months, guaranteed...so you may want to think about waiting on those cards for that long. Otherwise you're just wasting cash that you could put towards these new guys a year down the road when they are at the $200-$300 range.
I do feel bad for those who spent a lot on their new cards because of the huge technology shift we're about to see.
Post edited by RyanC_Masimo on
Comments
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On a related (kind of) topic - can you guys recommend a sound card for my PC that has a very high dynamic range and can accept a wide range of input voltages?
The stock sound card on my HP 752n tower overloads easily with True RTA and I have to be very careful to stay within its limits when doing distortion analysis."What we do in life echoes in eternity"
Ed Mullen (emullen@svsound.com)
Director - Technology and Customer Service
SVS -
Best affordable card on the market is the
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
I have that card and I use if for recording my guitar, ect.
Check out EBay. Should be able to get one for under $200. -
Here is the link to the guy who I actually bought mine from. He has a TON of them available and thats a good price for 'Buy It Now'.
EBAY -
I've been running a used GeForce 2 Pro for a little over a year now, and don't plan to upgrade until some of the Half-Life 2-ready cards go down in price. When I upgrade, I like to get a better part for less than I bought the previous card for :-DLudicrous gibs!
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Originally posted by nadams
I've been running a used GeForce 2 Pro for a little over a year now, and don't plan to upgrade until some of the Half-Life 2-ready cards go down in price. When I upgrade, I like to get a better part for less than I bought the previous card for :-D
Indeed. I'm going to buy the Radeon 9800 Pro XT 256 MB as soon as these next gen cards come out in spring. They'll all be around $150-200 -
Check out cards based on the VIA Envy24HT chip, they have pretty freaking good D/A and A/D converters.
Two off the top of my head are the Terratec Aureon Space 7.1 and the M-Audio Revolution
www.terratec.net
www.m-audio.com
I should have reviews of those two cards up in a few days.LSi 9/C/FX
Arcam AVR-200 -
Thanks guys - appreciate the tips. I'll book mark this thread."What we do in life echoes in eternity"
Ed Mullen (emullen@svsound.com)
Director - Technology and Customer Service
SVS -
tomshardware.com seems to have some good review of the various cards. They even had a shootout between the audigy2 class cards once I think (although I can't find it now).
I've been eying the m-audio revolution 7.1 or the new audigy 2 zs myself. I think I'd be happy with either although I thought I read something about the audigy 2 not sampling at 24 bits as they claim. I think that might have been resolved with the new zs card but you might want to do some searches and googling on that. I'm really only interested in the output so the sampling is not so much an issue with me.
regards
DaveTime is the best teacher. Unfortunately it kills all its students.
