Price Check: Graphics Cards

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 11 Jul 2003 at 11:28

With both of nVidia's and ATi's latest and greatest graphics cards finding their way to the UK, it means the moneyed can up the graphics ante, while those of shallower pockets should see prices fall on those cards that have been usurped.

And if there's nothing more annoying than finding what was billed as the best money can buy being superseded just months later - as we've seen with nVidia's new NV35 chipset that has just arrived in the form of the GeForce FX 5900 - at least the erstwhile leader the nVidia FX 5800 card should quickly become that much more affordable.

It'll take £388 to get the former to turn up at your door, in a card from Creative and available from Dabs.com. This card has 256MB of DDR memory and a host of TV and video ports to boot.

There's an Asus card with 128MB of memory from Dabs (again!) for £289 and a penny, although that's currently out of stock. In fact, the first 128MB FX 5900 we found that looked to be in stock was from GameLoaded - a Sparkle card - for a penny less than £300.

However, the news of the arrival of the N35 doesn't seem to have trickled through that quickly. A 128MB version of nVidia's FX 5800 card from Asus still costs £232.01 from Dabs.com. This too has all the bells and whistles of TV and DV ports. It's out of stock right now, but if you can stomach £252.50 you can pick up the AOpen version right now, from the same retailer.

If you prefer the ATi route, then our old friend Dabs seems to have the best deal on a 256MB version - at £374.01 - the card being the Connect3D Radeon 9800 Pro. A 128MB version from Gigabyte will set you back £294 - again from Dabs. But for a Sapphire version of the card, then GameLoaded looks to be the best deal, at just less than £310.