Quote Originally Posted by tajoh111 View Post
ATI would sell their cards as high end if they could.

The 9700 pro started at 399, and this is as far back as most people want to go.

Boo Hoo, stuff gets more expensive. The 300 dollar price range still exists, but it just means that their is a higher level of card priced above that. Who cares if all you can afford is a 300 dollar graphics card and you can't say your computer has a top of the line graphics card in it.
If you want top of the line, wait. It will get their when yeilds are better and they go to a more efficient manufacturing process.
I hope this post is a joke. In case it isn't, I'll respond. With the dollar depreciated, it matters a lot more on price. The line of "there's a higher card priced above that" is bull, marketing hook line and sinker.

As far as card prices? My 9700 pro ran me $320 on launch day. My Ti200 ran me about $220... my Voodoo 3 3000 ran $299, my V5 5500 ran about $350, my GF4 Ti4200 ran me about $200, I skipped the 5/6 series, 7900GT ran $250 for me at launch, 8800GTS 640 was the most expensive I ever bought at $380 and it seemed out of this world expensive. Since then I've bought a pair of 8800GT 512 cards for $250 total after a $30 rebate for SLI. The whole "but they've always been expensive!" thing is absurd and reeks of buying into marketing hype that spins things like a top.

Again, cards should not run $650... it's a *RECENT* trend with the 8800GTX and probably this GTX 280, not a long-term thing that should be coddled and appreciated for giving us tech "early" (yeah, right! early my arse). As consumers we should be appalled at such absurdly high prices... it's not like the economy is in a great time period, either, let alone the fact that it's basically ripping you off at those prices.

Try again with something reasonable, please, as to why video cards should run $650 for the high-end when they never have/had in the past?

Quote Originally Posted by BenchZowner View Post
Unless my memory serves me bad... I remember myself paying 590$ for a LeadTek WinFast GeForce 3 Ti500 back then...
I'm not 100% sure.... but that's what my memory says
Well, that's silly to do when the Ti200's were around $220 on Black Friday deals near launch and performed nearly as well when overclocked . It doesn't make it any less of a rip.