well where i live the 7600gt cost sometimes more than the 8600gt lolz..... $220 for a 7600gt--- 240 for 8600gt nz$
That $220 in New Zealand dollars equals $172 in U.S. dollars, according to the Xe.com currency converter. Newegg sells the 7600gt for anywhere between $89 and $127. Is it higher taxes or shipping volume that screws you guys over?
You'd think that lower volumes shipped from a Chinese factory by a Taiwanese card manufacturer would be offset by a closer distance. I think you guys in Australia and New Zealand get the short end of the stick compared to the U.S. and Canada as far as computer parts go.
Why not get a 7600gs until the 8800GTS drops in price once the 8900gts or 9800gts (whatever Nvidia calls it) arrives?
Im playing warcraft III in midsettings using my onboard VIA s3 graphics. THe game looks fine and doesnt freeze at all but during the time when i was still using my 5200 the game lags occasionally... funny isn't it?
The FX5200 was the worst card Nvidia ever made. The FX series defaulted to DX8 in Half Life 2 instead of the DX9 it they were made for. Everyone is saying that the 8400 and 8600 cards will default to DX9 instead of DX10. Only the 8800 series has a chance, and they still aren't doing all that well because of Vista driver issues.
AMD's in the same boat with their parts. Only the X2900 can do well under DX10 in newly released games. The value added features that make the midrange cards worth it are only for HTPC's not for budget gaming. I'd hoped that driver updates would change things, but I guess you can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
It's the FX series all over again, but this time from both AMD and Nvidia. See the following:
AMD and NVIDIA had the chance to define the minimum performance of a DX10 class part higher than what we can expect from cards that barely get by with DX9 code. By choosing to design their hardware without a significant, consistent performance advantage over the X1600 and 7600 class of parts, developers have even less incentive (not to mention ability) to push next generation features only possible with DX10 into their games. These cards are just not powerful enough to enable widespread use of any features that reach beyond the capability of DirectX 9.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3029&p=7
That's why I'm sticking with my poky 7600GS until Nvidia releases something that does well in DX10 games under Vista, then I'll get a new card and some DX10 titles. Until then, I'm not buying either because I don't want DX9 in a DX10 game.
That means not only AMD and Nvidia lose, the game developers lose too.