The component store down the street has this on sale, 512mb version. Good deal? I know everyone keeps saying X1950XT, and I would agree, but that step up program is somewhat appealing in case the urge for an 8800 comes up. What say you?

That's an OK deal. Newegg is selling it for the same amount w/ a MIR. The 512MB of RAM comes in handy for games like Oblivion and Quake 4. If you can't afford $400 for a 8800 GTS, then I'd definitely get the 7950GT KO 512.

Check this out for good deals:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/1 [...] the_money/

Heres a better 7950GT deal, less than 200 after the rebate:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814186002

Why didn't i see that? Nice find.

Great deal indeed.

The only problem is: it's Foxconn. I haven't bought one of their cards in a long time, but I didn't have good luck with them in the past. Plus, he mentioned that he was interested in the Step-Up program.

Other than that, great find!

is foxconn stuff cheap and nasty then?

i mean are any of the major manufacturers known to use a higher standard of component?

i currently own an xfx and don't seem to have a problem with it but i've read about others who have had nothing but problems with xfx

of these which is regarded as best in terms of quality not bundled extras:

xfx, evga, asus, gigabyte, gainward, msi, pny, bfg, foxconn

same question for ATI stuff

actually the reason i bought my mb was because of the expensive rubycon capcitors Abit used

also can someone explain the reason behind "rebate", is it the same as saying well the item sells recommended retail for XXX but we are selling it for XXX less?

Well, I'm not sure what the idea behind rebates is, but you should make sure you can get rebates in the UK. I believe some are US and Canada only.

To be honest, I've had bad luck with XFX in the past (don't kill me XFXSupport) but I would probably buy one of their newer cards because they have a good warranty and they seem to be good quality these days. Anyway, as I have stated, eVGA is my current fav. I heard some reports a year ago or so that they had started using lower-quality capacitors I believe, but I never did enough research to substantiate or disprove that. All I know is that I've never had an eVGA card crap out on me, and I have a 7600GT that I have running at 650/1700 stable for months with 0 problems (without voltmod).

I have used MSI GPUs, but only in a budget system (because I found a cheap MSI card on Newegg when I was building). But, I've never had any problems with them either.

cheers

Well i've had creative cards before and gone through 3 of them before i got one that worked, good customer service though

Rebates are one of the biggest cons in the retail world. Companies offer decent rebates to get a lower bottom-line price in ads and on store shelves. Companies know fairly well what percentage of customers will claim a rebate and so offer them with abandon. My experience with rebates is that the companies are painfully slow in paying them, and that's when they do pay. I'm still waiting on a small $10 rebate I mailed off for in mid-September.

I'm with you there. Step-up program + lifetime warranty is a nice little package. BFGTech is my second favorite.

Just remember that if you use the EVGA Step-Up program that the card you'll be purchasing from them will cost you the full msrp minus what you paid for your original card. Not saying it's a bad program, just something to be aware of. Also, not all EVGA cards have lifetime warranties. It depends on what their part number ends with: EVGA Lifetime Warranty Details.

Thanks , so it's basically a money back offer that relies on the lazyness of the majority of people to not bother or those that forget about it until its too late

With the step up program do you actually get a retail boxed upgrade or could it be a refurb?

So do you remember the last xfx card you had? i thought they were a relatively new company, is it possible they traded under a different name prior to the existence of xfx?

Well, we bought some XFX cards for some workstations at my previous job. We bought 4 of them, and 3 of them went bad within a year, so that was the last I dealt with them (they had a fatal error with the fan that caused it to stop spinning, causing the cards to overheat). However, this was in the days of (as I recall) GeForce FX. The cards were something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150040

So it's not really surprising that they were crappy I guess. Plus, I believe XFX was still the new kid on the block at that time, so things have changed since then. Like I said: I would buy a newer XFX card, I just stick with eVGA for now because I've had excellent luck with them to date (and I like the step-up program).

With Step-Up you get boxed retail version. It's a rockin' program, and nobody can deny.

The 5200 series needed an active fan!!!????

thanks, i'll consider evga on my next purchase,

checking the t&c
"The EVGA Step-up™ Program is limited to residents of the Continental US, Canada and Europe only."

Yeah, check the pics on that Newegg link I posted. That one has a fan.

I owned some that didn't require a fan, but I believe they were the "Lite Edition", and they had pretty OK-sized heatsinks.

With the X1950 XT at $260, I'd say a $245 7950 GT KO is a bad deal.

The X1950 XT will violate a 7950 GT KO...