Nvidia 8800GT to 9800GTX pricing - Does it make sense?

[sleepyhead]

I'm willing to admit I shouldn't have got the 8600GT, what I thought was a bargain buy didn't quite live up to what I hoped it could do. I been window shopping (no cash to buy a replacement) from the 8800GT through to the 9800GTX.

(Please note pricing is a rough approximation from the pricing I found online and not reflective of RRP, but inclusive of VAT)

So starting at the 8800GT, I found that for around £100 up to £200 (which really surprised me).

Next is the 8800 GTS (the G92 version) which again I can find for around £150.

8800 GTX is £180 and the 9800 GTX is around the £200.

There is such a massive overlap, in my eyes, from a factory overclocked 8800GT (with 1GB video ram) being the same price as an 9800 GTX!

I can sit here and read review after review of the performance of each card on it's own and in SLi mode but what's the point?

I know I am covering two generations of GFX card here but if we take the 8800 GTX and 9800 GTX versions, is it worth the extra £20 for an approximate 7% increase in performance? Probably. So then if you were to spend £200, a stock 9800 GTX for £200 or some third party overclocked 8800 GT (that has less 'features')?

This is before we add into the mix the AMD/ATi offerings!!!

Does the pricing make any sense? Not to me it doesn't, not to me. If I was willing to burn around £200 for a GFX card, I'd probably go for the 9800 GTX. Perhaps HEXUS (or maybe they already have done and I have been blind to see it) could do a bang for buck chart of the range of popular video gaming cards (8800GT -> 9800 GX2 + AMD/ATi offerings)?

[h0mes]

what size monitor do you have? if its no bigger than 22" then i would go for the 8800 GTS 512mb version!

[matty-hodgson]

agree with the above..

would you be overclocking your card?
the 9800GTX overclocks like crazy!
and i can tell you that the 8800GT is a very nice card, but the 9800GTX is just so much better.. even at my resolution (1280 x 1024)

i got the 9800GTX at £167 btw, that's why i bought it..

[sleepyhead]

My apologies, I'm not actively looking at buying and not really about me buying a card.

It's more of a rant/discussion on how confusing the market is, in terms or price, performance and real world gains.

Sure if I was to buy another card, probably a 8800 GTS/GTX second hand when someone gets a 9800 GTX/GX2 but it's not really about me. I was using my situation to set the ground of what sparked this issue with me.

The pricing structure of the range of cards quoted, for me, overlap so much, you may as well get the most recent of cards (9800 GTX) instead of buying a nice 8800 (GT/GTS/GTX) with some nice frilly bits (extra video memory or games or small overclock), regardless of what monitor size you currently have as it makes more bang for buck sense (especially as how it is very easy to upgrade monitor sizes these days from 19in to 24in).

what size monitor do you have? if its no bigger than 22" then i would go for the 8800 GTS 512mb version!

I suppose the issue here is that you can get an 8800GTS for around £150, yet for £25 more you can get the 8800GTX and then for another say £25 you are in the 9800GTX territory! Where is the definitive line between models and pricing?