No better time to buy a 260

[Alwaysrun]

Seems Nvidia is letting thier partners take it on the chin to steal market share back from ATI. The 260s meant to directly compete with the 4870s is being phased out, both the 65nm and 55nm have stopped being produced. So it's a win/win for the consumers. The great deals on 260s found over the last week will continue as Nvidia board partners do thier best to clean out old stock and they're actually losing money on every card sold.

Nvidia GTX260s now losing money - The Inquirer

I know everyone wants bleeding edge tech but I've always resisted such notions as at current a decent GTX 260 216sp can run pretty much every game out on max setting in 1680x1050 rez. Price point wise such performance at ~$220 CAD is unfreaknbelievable. Looking at the 280s going for 50% more and only giving back a 10-15% performance increase is laughable in my mind.

Interesting read at the Inquirer and shines a better light on why 260 prices have really dropped lately. I feel for the Nvidia partners but now I see why so many of thier partners are also now selling team red products. XFX is a prime example and a welcome relief for ATI users.

I hope to see some killer deals on 260s in this weeks NCIX deals but perhaps it's ATI's turn to lose money this week.

Tomshardware.com Best Graphics cards for the money March '09
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...deon,2218.html

[Squeetard]

I may pick up another 260 and go sli.

[Alwaysrun]

My thoughts exactly Squeetard. 2x GTX260s in SLi would absolutely destroy a 285 at the same price point, and be comperable to a 4870x2 in performance but $120 cheaper.

Anyone have a Sli board they wanna get rid of?

[bojangles]

I don't like it when companies lose money. Frankly just because we, as a consumer won, doesn't mean the world is happy. If we lose out on companies like EVGA and XFX, then we may not see such deals later on. The economy is bad, yes...sales in graphics cards dropped because nobody could afford them. But making the manufacturers run out of money too? That doesn't make sense at all. The goal for a company is to make money. If they don't make money, they file for bankruptcy, like what GM is going to do right quickly here. nVidia needs to make a new architecture that doesn't require such a large die and make the power consumption lower so that VRMs, chokes, etc. don't cost so much money. Once that happens, then we can talk about lowering the price.

I don't want to see our good vendors go away. If they lose money they'll cut out what we as customers need: customer support and lifetime warranties. Those will all be gone because they want to make money faster than they spend it.

I don't like where this is going. I say keep the cards at the price where they are because they already have great price/performance. This is why many vendors have already frozen the price of the HD 4800 series cards. Until we see a NEW series of cards come out (not just a rebrand ---> I'm talking to you, Nvidia ), then I would like to see some price drops.

[thenewguy001]

I love Charlie's article's on Nvidia

[Chilly]

Originally Posted by bojangles

snip

Here's the thing, ATi won this round BIG time, and I'm not talking about GPU performance. nVidia can only do so much to make money, at some point its costing more to store cards which no one is buying, then to simply let them go below cost. That's whats happening right now, if nVida lets the cards sit at a higher price no one will buy them(because of ATi's comparable offering is cheaper) and it will cost them MORE to let the cards sit gathering dust then it is to simply let them go under cost.

nVidia's not stupid, they know how to make money, the rebrand is a PERFECT example of that. While its extremely misleading to the average consumer, and despite the fact that many in "the know" will ignore/boycott it, it WILL sell better than the original branding would of, as well as make them more profit on each unit sold.

Trust me, even though there losing money on every sale(GTX260), there making more money then they would of otherwise.

[thenewguy001]

I'm sure Nvidia has got a lot more money to burn than ATI. To me, selling cards under cost is a good interim strategy because 1) they deny sales to ATI, 2) retain loyal nvidia-only customers and prevent them from switching (and getting used to) ATI. Taking a small loss on each sale right now is probably better than letting ATI get a bigger profit, and potentially, new fanboys.

The rebranding IS incredibly sleazy to anyone who understands it, but I'm sure as soon as they release the next gen card that outclasses ATI's current offering, everything will be forgotten and forgiven. The GPU tech and market moves so fast that these little scandals won't last.

[Matt]

Are they phasing out the core 216 version too? That would explain why there are some really good deals on those right now.

[artistpavel]

Does Nvidia GTX260 support DirectX 10.1 and is it going to support 11? Trying to be future proof.

I guess it's a good time to sell my 8800GT, other wise no one would want it if 260 can go for the same price.

[Sagath]

Short: No. No cards on market are DX11.

Long: I dont think the DX11 instruction set has been finalized by MS yet...I could be wrong, but I'm pritty sure its going to be a future roll out, like in the old DX8 days.

Probably some time after Winblows 7 MS will release DX 11, so I would say Q2 2010 at earliest, which means maybe (MAYBE) the next gen series will support DX11.