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March 2005 Video Card Price GuideBy SharkyExtreme.com Staff March 4, 2005Welcome to the Sharky Extreme Video Card Price Guide, which follows our current CPU and Memory guides by presenting a snap-shot of the overall market. This follows the same basic pattern as our CPU price guide, starting off with individual lists for both NVIDIA and ATI, then separating them into the various entry-level, mainstream and high-end market segments, and finishing up with a sorted price list combining all the cards. The video card price lists are not meant to duplicate the vendor selection of an online price engine like PriceWatch, but instead looks to present a view of the overall video card marketplace. The video cards and manufacturers in the price lists are selected due to video chip and brand popularity, market visibility, and overall positioning. In some cases, we only show the OEM price for less popular models, while including multiple retail cards at the hotter ends of the market. * Please note that unless otherwise stated (using an OEM designation) the listed video cards are full retail boxed editions, and unless expressly stated either way, are assumed to be AGP models. The ATI market starts with the Radeon 9X00-based video cards, ranging from the entry-level Radeon 9000 to the powerful Radeon 9800XT, and extending all the way to the top-of-the-line Radeon X850 XT Platinum. The following list is sorted by product line to give a full view of the various ATI-based options, and exactly which models include special All-in-Wonder editions and larger memory capacities. The Radeon 9X00 and X300 to X850-based cards featured in the list are the models that are readily available online, and we continue to drop last-generation cards that are extremely difficult to find. March did bring a few ATI price cuts, but unfortunately these were concentrated at the high-end of the scale. The X800-based models accounted for our two largest drops, as the ATI Radeon X800 XL 256MB dipped by $78 and the Sapphire Radeon X800 XT Platinum 256MB fell by $55. Close behind was the ATI Radeon X850 XT 256MB, which showed a price decrease of $31, and there were only four other double-digit cuts, only one of which (the $13 cut to the ATI X600 XT 128MB) didn't revolve around more Radeon X800-based cards. This is a good week to be buying at the top-end of the ATI lineup, but entry-level and mainstream buyers will be less enthused. This is especially true given the price increases hitting the various Radeon 9600, 9700 and 9800-based cards.
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