The new budget-friendly
9600 GT (pictured) already has plenty of folks excited, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. NVIDIA's new GeForce 9-series has a top-end
9800 GX2 card slated for March 11th -- if these rumors are to be believed -- that is supposed to best the 8800 Ultra's performance by a solid 30 percent. The card is supposed to land for less than $599, but if that's a bit much for you, the 9800 GTX should hit for under $399 in "late March," with the 9800 GT following on April 3rd for under $299. If all of this is too much horsepower for you, the 9600 GS, 9500 GT and 9500 GS are slated to arrive in May, June and July, respectively, and all should hit at under the 9600 GT's already friendly sub-$200 pricepoint. AMD's latest offerings are pretty dang cheap as well, and aren't slouching in the benchmarks, so it's certainly a good time to be a PC gamer.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jonathan @ Feb 22nd 2008 10:51AM
Damn it feels good to be a gamer
Kamokazi @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:14AM
A real gamer-ass fragger plays his games right
A real gamer-ass fragger never checks his ****in rank
Cuz real gamer-ass fraggas always win fights
And fraggas always gotta get caps (the flag, yo)
Showin all his boys how he headshot em
But real gamer-ass fraggas dont flex e-peens
Cuz real gamer-ass fraggas know they got em
And everythings cool in the mind of a gamer
Cuz gamer-ass fraggas think deep
Up three-sixty-five a year 24/7
Cuz real gamer-ass fraggas dont sleep (They drink Bawls)
Sorry, couldn't resist...
mark @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:25AM
heh.
good time to be a gamer? remember when the top of the line graphics cards used to be around $250.
Kamokazi @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:52AM
That was way back in Voodoo 1 & 2 days....when things started to get serious (GF2/3 Era) the prices quickly hit the $400-$500 mark.
What we're now seeing is much more performance for the price. Looking back to the 6-series nVidia cards, you'd have to spend $200 on a 6600GT that didnt perform nearly as well at a $400 6800GT. Now you can get $200 8800GTs that perform almost as well as a $400 8800GTX. While the launch prices of these 9000 series are higher, you know they will quickly drop. I imagine we'll see 9800GTs at $250 within a month of launch, and the 9600GT is already at $180 and falling, despite being launched only a few days ago.
Darkest Daze @ Feb 22nd 2008 10:54AM
Sweet, can't wait till Late March. I've been putting off upgrading my 7800GTX for the 9800GTX. I try and buy a new card every other generation, but Nvidia's been making that hard since they've gone a long time with the 8-series.
disciple83 @ Feb 22nd 2008 10:55AM
Maybe it's time I moved on past AGP graphics?
makishima @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:02AM
haha yeah I am right there with you. I wanted to wait until DX10 cards were at least in their second product line before building a new system. Looks like a pair of GTX's for me ^_^
HotMayo @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:39AM
Yeah my current machine still sports an X800 Pro AGP, 1.5GB RAM and an Athlon64 3200+. I guess I am a little behind the times also. Hard to believe my machine is almost 5 years old already. Maybe I should just wait until it dies before I upgrade.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it right? Damn I'm such a cheapskate. :)
sTeven @ Feb 22nd 2008 8:00PM
don't feel bad, hotmayo
i'm still using a 3GHz P4HT with 2GB of DDR400 and a 7600GT
but then again, the P4 530 is slightly more powerful than the 3200+
and the OC'd XFX 7600GT is kinda more of an X1800 competitor
oh well
w/e
im not buying a new PC till college - and itll be a laptop
Kamokazi @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:01AM
Hmmm....about to build a new HTPC...don't know if I can wait for the 9800GT, it'd be nice to have a good card with a built-in HDMI port (assuming it has them like the 9600GT does).
Tomoki @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:01AM
"it's certainly a good time to be a PC gamer."
Unless you just bought a more expensive, less powerful card two months ago. :(
spanky mchoe @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:06AM
Well you only had yourself to blame if you did. Everyone knew that the 9xxx series cards were coming.
Dr. Evil @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:01AM
Kudo to Nvidia for releasing a good bang-for-the-buck budget priced card early.
I'm waiting for the GT which has always beed a good mid-level performer. Hopefully it will hit $200 quickly.
makishima @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:04AM
Umm....the new GT's will be less than $200. Read the article about them on engadget in the breaking news section 9600 the new budget hotness.
peter Newman @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:09AM
@makishima
That's the 9600GT. He means the 9800GT, which will be the real powerful gaming card and the successor to the 8800gt. Almost all of the cards have a GT somewhere in the family name; i had an 8500GT, but that wasn't THE GT card; it blew. I'm guessing that the 9800Gt will probably be priced between $250-$300 and sell closer to $300-$350, but that's purely a guess.
makishima @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:12AM
heh my bad :P I thought about it for a minute after posting and decided I was dumb. Too early for me
Dr. Evil @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:11AM
Umm... 9800 GT. I forgot to include that but you probably could have figured it out since I said "mid-level" "waiting" and that I wanted it to drop below "$200" before I bought it.
peter Newman @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:05AM
I just grabbed myself an 8800gt a few weeks back, knowing that the 9-series would be coming soon. Luckily for me, this card should (i hope) be good enough to play all of the top-of-the-line games for at least a year or so; it already runs crysis on very high at 1280/960. If not, i could always pick up another one cheap after the 9800gt comes along and the price plummets.
My only concern about this happening now is the future: What is NVidia going to do once they want to move past the 9-series? Are they going to use 10000? Will they start to act like ATI with an X in the front? The reason I started with NVidia in the first place was that the naming system seemed simpler and more intuitive to me. If they lose that, everything will be so much more dificult, especially for newcomers to pc gaming like i was when i first became interested in all of this stuff.
Byzil Mystwing @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:06AM
Nooo.. my poor 8800Ultra! No longer will I be able to justify the ridiculous price I paid last year by convincing myself the few % it has ahead of the rest is actually worth something :(
I still hate myself for not waiting a few more months and just getting dual GTs or something. sigh, hindsight.
Iridium @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:08AM
Once you can start to play the top games at 1680x1050 with all settings at high on a card for less than $200 PC gaming will come back. This looks like it might start to happen.
I still have an X800XT because it was hard to find a card for less than $350 that would outperform it by a large enough margin to make it worth while. I'd love to start playign some PC games again, haven't bought one since Battlefront 2.
Wes @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:09AM
Ummmm..... didn't Radeon have a 9X00 series just a couple of years ago? I'm pretty sure I put a 9600XT in my old 'puter to play UT2K4.
Time to find some new designations, folks?
LesbianHam @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:17AM
Pfft, i've had a 9800 PRO for years now, OLD!
;)
Josh @ Feb 25th 2008 6:35PM
Wow, i retired that a LONG time ago; but it DOES play doom so I can't dog it too much.
kal326 @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:22AM
Now the only real questions left are can you use an i780 and go 3way 9800GX2 for 6 GPU lov'n and the most obvious....does it blend? Either one is a rather costly answer.
Jason @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:28AM
well, if the gx2 is as big as its 8 series model then i dont think it will blend. Well atleast not in my blender; it is just simply too long to fit.
Allen @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:24AM
You know, I have this feeling that the 8800GT and 9600GT are the same card, but the 9600GT has DX 10.1 enabled. It'd make sense, they are both based on a G92 core, and the benchmarks all show the 9600GT getting about the same performance as a 8800GT.
Curtis Joslin @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:32AM
wow, no.. your misinformed the 9600gt has only 64 pipelines its based on the g94 (g92's little brother) and nvidia is not hardware supporting 10.1.
bout the only thing you said that was correct is that the 2 cards are close in performance.
Vanillacide @ Feb 22nd 2008 12:10PM
Fudzilla reported last week that 9800GT is a rebadged 8800GT but with support for 3-way SLI and a higher stock clock-speed (maybe same speed as OC or OC2 models?).
Gerald @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:30AM
when are we going to see DirectX 10.1 support? Do these cards have it?
Johan S @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:44AM
Only 30% more performance high end 8 series to high end 9? I keep expecting a performance doubling every new generation .. ahh the old days.
Robert @ Feb 22nd 2008 11:55AM
Anyone have any news on when we'll see some new 9000 series mobile/laptop cards?
Eric B. @ Feb 22nd 2008 12:31PM
Thank GOD I still haven't bought my HP Blackbird yet. I can wait until they have the GX2.
BTW, this is the card with SLI in one card right?
engadget @ Feb 22nd 2008 12:33PM
April 3rd huh?
I guess we all know where alot of Tax Refund checks are going to be headed this year.
When do the 9000 series Core 2 Quads come out?
It may very well be a great time to be a gamer.
X48/nF790i + 8900GTX (SLI) + Core 2 Quad 9450 with a simple FSB Overclock to 400 (turns your 2.66 Quad into a 3.2Ghz Quad).
Thats gonna be one screaming machine.
And to think, you could go with a mATX Board and a 9800GX2 and still stuff all this goodness into a mATX Tower/Cube
sturmnacht @ Feb 22nd 2008 1:23PM
Prediction on notebooks:
Sony Vaio SZ: 9500 GS or 9600 GS
Sony Vaio FZ: 9500 GT
Sony Vaio AR: 9600 GT
Apple Macbook Pro: 9600 GT
Dell XPS m1330: 9500 GS
Dell XPS m1530: 9500 GS or 9600 GT
VAlmendarez @ Feb 22nd 2008 1:50PM
How do these Nvidia Geforce 9800 GTX's compare to the ATI Radeon 9800xt's.
See what I did there?
Frankenstein Black @ Feb 22nd 2008 2:31PM
PhysX PPU Inside? If not I will pass...
Brian @ Feb 22nd 2008 3:46PM
Of course.
Ageia Physx is a free upgrade from all 8-series and higher.
It doesn't matter if you buy the 8800gt or the 9800gt... they will both of ageia.
xer0 @ Feb 22nd 2008 3:16PM
imagine 3 of these in sli, same power as 6 8800GTX ultras o_o
Zeus.:God @ Feb 25th 2008 10:48AM
Imagine that it won't be able to do so because of it's single SLI finger/connector...
Joshua Walters @ Feb 22nd 2008 3:31PM
And to think, I just bought my 8600GT TT.
Its a nice card, it handles Crysis, but I do plan to grab one of these 9 series cards pretty quick.
They are not at all expensive (considering I payed $100 for my card).
bartoron @ Feb 22nd 2008 6:22PM
You know, ever since I got this laptop I've truly realized how blessed I am to have a 7900 GT in my desktop. o__O
I can't even begin to imagine what a 9800 GX2 will be like.
Kurian @ Feb 24th 2008 1:21AM
Another scam. What crap. The dimwits at nVidia should come up with something new instead of die shrinking and releasing TWO generations of card that cant run Crysis! What the fuck.
I'm keeping my 7800GTX.
Arjy @ Feb 25th 2008 10:23PM
9800gtx, wasnt that supposed to be 512 bit, 1gb gddr4, and had a 55nm g100 core? Thats what I remember reading on wikipedia a week or two back.
Richard @ Feb 29th 2008 2:00PM
Price still high I think, come on Nvidia need to reliaze PC game is like the alltime low in term of actually take a good use of video card, I seen many console game also hit in pc, but not till after console come out first, fact is nvidia need to work with PC companies making game that people actually take advantage of their card, which I don't think Nvidia is doing such good job, all they really care if the profit they earn from the pricey video card sales. Also with price of GTX or higher you can just get a PS3! I think Nvidia should really step up!