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June Video Card Price GuideBy SharkyExtreme.com Staff June 27, 2006Welcome 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 or PriceGrabber, but instead looks to present a monthly 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 listed as PCIe, 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 mainstream Radeon X700 Pro/X1600 XT, and extending all the way to the top-of-the-line Radeon X1800 and X1900 cards. 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 X1900-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. June has been an excellent month for ATI buyers, and best of all, the deals were present at virtually all budget and performance levels. The big news is the All-in-Wonder Radeon X1900 256MB card, which had its price drop through the floor (-$116) to a very attractive $270. This is priced lower than the Radeon X1900 GTO and even the All-in-Wonder X1800 XL video cards. The X850 XT continues to fall, dropping another $48 this month, while ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB was not far behind with a $47 cut. The ATI AiW 2006 Edition PCI Express and AGP cards also received price drops of $38 and $37, respectively, while the aggregate chart drop added up to a very healthy $316. This would have been even larger had supplies of the ATI Radeon X850 Pro 256MB cards not dwindled, and taken a +$99 toll on our chart.
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