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December 2008 Video Card Price GuideBy SharkyExtreme.com Staff January 1, 2008Welcome to the Sharky Extreme Video Card Price Guide, which compliments our 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 AMD, 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 AMD-ATI market starts with the Radeon 9X00-based video cards, ranging from the entry-level Radeon X300/HD 2400 to the mainstream Radeon X1650 XT/HD 2600 XT, and extending all the way to the top-of-the-line Radeon X1950 and HD 2900 XT cards. The following list is sorted by product line to give a full view of the various AMD-based options, and exactly which models include special All-in-Wonder editions and larger memory capacities. The Radeon HD 2400, 2600, 3800 and 2900-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. As ATI has effectively halted production on their popular All-in-Wonder brand, we have started listing prices for the TV Wonder 550, 600 and 650 HD cards. November showed us a very stable pricing trend for ATI-based video cards, and at least looking at the overall numbers, December stays right on track. The overall chart movement resulted in an aggregate chart drop of only $8, but there were a pack of video cards that shifted in price. On the price drop front, eight ATI cards fell by double digits, the largest of which was a $69 cut to the Sapphire Dual X1950 Pro 1GB. There were five price increases that hit similar levels, but the massive $105 spike to the hard-to-find Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB led the way.
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