Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1076



Introduction
For those of you not familiar with the guides here is a brief overview on how we construct them:

We select vendors to appear in our Price Guides based on two requirements: solid consumer feedback and having the lowest possible pricing. You'll notice that these vendors aren't paying us to be listed here; we do not accept requests to be listed here. We have tried to eliminate vendors with low feedback rating, but we do encourage you to do your own research before purchasing from any of these vendors.

With the new and improved Price Guides we have not only increased our standards when evaluating online vendors, but we have also partnered up with our friends at CNet to offer yet another service to you all. Using CNet's Shopper.com search engine we can provide you with an additional pool of vendors to search from that are checked up on by CNet. You can wade through those results by clicking on the CNet Pricing link in the second to last column on the right.

If there are any problems with the guide or a vendor's pricing changes dramatically then be sure to email the author listed at the top of the page and we'll take appropriate action. Remember that although some vendors may be cheaper, we only list those with generally positive feedback from a decent number of consumers. As usual, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions feel free to email us or post in the AnandTech Forums.

Also be sure to check out AnandTech's Hot Deals Forum for even more great CPUs, Video Cards and other technology buys.

Disclaimer
AnandTech does not endorse any vendor listed in the following price guide. AnandTech does not sell positions on the Price Guide. AnandTech nor any of the vendors listed in this guide guarantee the prices presented in the following pages.

This Week
As usual, if you have any reports of incorrect prices please feel free to email us with the name of the vendor and the product/price that appears incorrectly on their website. This will help us produce a more useful guide in the future.

We cleaned up some more motherboards and added a few more. Check out Granite Bay and SIS 655 boards for the week! Also, it seems as though GeForceFX boards are finally available for pre-order.



Product
Current
Price
S+H
Week
Change
Link
BizRate
Motherboard Intel
845E Abit IT7 MAX2
$167.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
845E ASUS P4B533-E
$149.99
$1.00
$-3.01
GoogleGear
Compare Prices
845G Abit BG7
$110.00
$0.00
$-2.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
845PE Albatron PX845PEV Pro
$82.99
$0.00
$-2.01
NewEgg
Compare Prices
845PE ASUS P4PE
$117.99
$0.00
$-3.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
845PE Gigabyte 8PE667
$95.00
$6.95
$12.95
DealSonic
Compare Prices
845PE Intel D845PEBT2
$125.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
845PE MSI MAX2-FIR
$137.00
$5.00
$-11.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
845E Tyan S2099GNNR
$175.99
$1.00
$-1.00
GoogleGear
Compare Prices
850E ASUS P4T533
$171.99
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
850E Gigabyte GA-81HXP
$155.00
$5.00
$-3.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
850E MSI MAX
$129.00
$5.00
$-3.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
E7205 ASUS P4G8X Deluxe
$227.00
$0.00
$-2.00
PCProgress
Compare Prices
E7205 ASUS P4G8X
$217.00
$0.00
N/A
PCProgress
Compare Prices
E7205 Gigabyte 8INXP
$227.00
$0.00
$-28.00
PCProgress
Compare Prices
E7205 IWill P4GB
$220.00
$5.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
E7205 MSI Master-L
$189.99
$1.00
$-2.00
GoogleGear
Compare Prices
Motherboard SIS Intel
648 Abit SR7-8X
$89.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
648 ASUS P4S8X
$127.75
$0.00
$-5.24
AllStarShop
Compare Prices
648 Gigabyte 8SG667
$85.00
$6.95
$3.95
DealSonic
Compare Prices
648 MSI MAX-F
$81.00
$0.00
$-3.00
NuTrend
Compare Prices
651 Gigabyte 8SIMLH
$81.99
$0.50
$3.50
GoogleGear
Compare Prices
655 Gigabyte SINXP1394
$230.00
$0.00
N/A
NewEgg
Compare Prices
Motherboard VIA Intel
P4X400 Soyo Ultra
$85.99
$0.50
$2.50
GoogleGear
Compare Prices
P4X400 VIA P4PB
$79.00
$0.00
N/A
NewEgg
Compare Prices

The first thing you may notice is that we added an additional column on the left hand side of our guides. Since we often get a lot of emails asking for more info about each product, the additional column should point to an article that we wrote about the particular motherboard or video card. Please report broken links.

Intel motherboards remained largely unchanged this week, but Granite Bay (E7205) motherboards seem to be popping up with more frequency. Prices, unfortunately seem unusually high, in the 200USD range for even the most basic of GB solutions. Fortunately, we are going to start seeing SIS's brilliant answer to Granite Bay within the next week or so. While checking out NewEgg, we saw the first pre-order of the Gigabyte SINXP1934 which we reviewed several weeks ago.

The SIS 655 boards gave even the best E7205 boards a run for their money, so we highly recommend passing over the Granite Bay boards and waiting until more SIS 655 boards become available.

For the more value oriented consumer, we still recommend the 845PE boards. These boards still pack a mighty punch, without sacrificing performance. Our Intel board of choice for this week remains the ASUS P4PE. It turns out that we still have quite a wait before Springdale/Centerwood boards hit the market, so if you plan on buying an intermediate stepping stone, the 845PE is still the board of choice.



Product
Current
Price
S+H
Week
Change
Link
BizRate
Motherboard NVIDIA
nForce ASUS A7N266-VM
$71.99
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
nForce2 Abit NF7-S
$125.00
$0.00
$-1.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
nForce2 ASUS A7N8X
$118.99
$0.00
$-1.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
nForce2 ASUS A7N8X Deluxe
$144.99
$1.00
$0.00
GoogleGear
Compare Prices
nForce2 Chaintech 7NJS Zenith
$168.00
$0.00
$-10.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
nForce2 Epox 8RDA+
$112.00
$5.00
$-10.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
nForce2 LeadTek K7NCR18D-Pro
$110.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
nForce2 Soltek 75FRN
$100.00
$0.50
N/A
GoogleGear
Compare Prices
Motherboard SIS AMD
735 ECS K7S5A
$58.00
$0.00
N/A
NewEgg
Compare Prices
735 ECS K7S5A Pro
$60.00
$0.00
$-2.50
NewEgg
Compare Prices
745 ASUS A7S333
$65.75
$-0.00
N/A
AllStarShop
Compare Prices
745 MSI Ultra
$70.00
$0.00
N/A
PCProgress
Compare Prices
Motherboard VIA AMD
KM266 ECS K7VMM+
$61.00
$0.00
N/A
NewEgg
Compare Prices
KT333 Albatron KX400+ Pro
$68.99
$0.50
$-0.50
GoogleGear
Compare Prices
KT333 ASUS A7V333
$84.99
$0.00
$-9.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
KT333 MSI KT3 Ultra2
$75.99
$0.00
$0.00
CompuBuzz
Compare Prices
KT333 Soyo Dragon Ultra
$131.99
$1.00
$-6.01
GoogleGear
Compare Prices
KT400 Abit AT7-MAX2
$165.00
$0.00
N/A
NewEgg
Compare Prices
KT400 ASUS A7V8X
$106.99
$0.00
$-11.01
NewEgg
Compare Prices
KT400 Chaintech 7VJL Deluxe
$104.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
KT400 Epox 8K9A2+
$109.00
$5.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
KT400 Gigabyte 7VAXP
$110.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
KT400 MSI KT4 Ultra FISR
$135.00
$5.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
KT400 Shuttle AK37GT
$85.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
KT400 Soltek 75FRV
$83.00
$0.50
N/A
GoogleGear
Compare Prices
KT400 Soyo Dragon Ultra
$111.99
$0.00
$0.00
CompuBuzz
Compare Prices

This week's AMD motherboards proved more interesting than the Intel based boards. For the most part, KT333 based chipsets dropped at least 10% in price, even if our price engine does not entirely reflect that. (Our engine updates every week, but we only post motherboard guides every 2 weeks.) KT400 based motherboards also show little or no change, when in fact they have dropped approximately 10-15% as well since our last guide.

nForce2 boards have retained their price since debut for the most part. Without any competition, these boards are really the only choice for anyone considering an AMD based platform right now. Specifically, the EPoX 8RDA+ dropped in price again to become our AMD motherboard pick of the week. This board is priced aggressively with EPoX's own KT400 based chipset, but as we know from several benchmarks and tests of the nForce2 chipset, the additional few dollars spent on the 8RDA+ is money well spent. Unfortunately ASUS's A7N8X Deluxe model has moved very little since introduction. The 30USD difference in price between these two models seems unpromising unless you plan on investing in a serial ATA drive any time soon.

However, if you have money to burn for serial ATA we recommend rethinking your decision and buying a faster processor instead. The performance increase does not seem to warrant the extremely high price tag just yet, so money spent on a Barton processor will most likely result in a greater boost in performance.

We also included a few budget AMD boards this week, since there seems to be some extremely good deals if you plan on assembling that long desired Linux box or second workstation. With AMD XP 2100+ Thoroughbred B CPU's retailing for under 100USD, and DDR dropping to under 60 bucks for 512MB of PC2700, it becomes almost trivial to construct a sub 400USD workstation. We recently put together a small cluster of 3 ECS K7VMM+ based FreeBSD machines here in the lab with the final cost of each at 360USD each. Even though RAM and processors continue to drop like a rock, AMD systems are still excellent buys for this week.



Product
Current
Price
S+H
Week
Change
Link
BizRate
Video ATI
ATI Radeon 9000 64MB
$64.00
$0.00
$-4.00
AllStarShop
Compare Prices
ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB
$95.00
$0.00
$5.05
PCProgress
Compare Prices
ATI Radeon 9500 64MB
$141.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
ATI Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
$197.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
$345.00
$0.00
$8.00
PCProgress
Compare Prices
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro A-I-W
$379.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
Crucial Radeon 9700 Pro
$339.99
$0.00
$20.00
Crucial
Compare Prices
FIC AT010 9700 Pro
$296.00
$0.00
$1.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
Hercules Prophet 9700 Pro
$362.00
$0.00
$7.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
PowerColor Radeon 9700
$248.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
PowerColor Radeon 9700 Pro
$299.00
$0.00
N/A
NewEgg
Compare Prices
Sapphire Atlantis 9000 64MB
$87.99
$0.50
N/A
GoogleGear
Compare Prices
Sapphire Atlantis 9500 64MB
$139.00
$0.00
$-24.00
AllStarShop
Compare Prices
Sapphire Atlantis 9500 Pro 128MB
$158.00
$0.00
$-24.99
AllStarShop
Compare Prices
Sapphire Atlantis 9700
$242.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
Sapphire Atlantis 9700 Pro
$311.00
$0.00
$-2.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices

The ATI video card train proves again this week to be a wild ride. We are not sure if resellers just can not make up their minds, or if products fly off the shelves, but we can conclude that unusual practices are abundant in this market. For example, last week we noticed that the Gigabyte Maya II 9700 Pro was carried by virtually every merchant. This week, however, most major merchants do not have a single unit in stock. Several in fact deleted the item from their inventory.

Meanwhile, we are having troubles differentiating between Sapphire and "Built by ATI" video cards as almost every merchant we list tends to use the interchangeably. These cards are technically identical, the only difference being the color of the PCB and the OEM fan. However, most people enjoy getting what they pay for, so paying for a video card that proclaims "Built by ATI" should result in the same red PCB card. We attempted to screen our cards the best we could, although some resellers seem to make it very difficult to find out which card you are actually buying.

Most 9700 Pro cards were priced in the 300USD range while the FIC AT010 undercut the Sapphire equivalent by approximately 20USD. Although not all 9700 Pro's are made the same, we can justify the the marginal differences with a significant 20USD difference. However, the Sapphire cards are also slowly coming down in price, and we can expect them to break the 300USD range within the next few weeks. Obviously, when we start to see some R350 chipsets we can expect the 9700/Pro cards to drop at least 25% in price.

Other notable tidbits include the lack of any third party 9700 Pro All-In-Wonder cards. We are starting to see some 9000 AIW cards which we will start listing next week. However, the promised Sapphire BEAST 9700 Pro seems surprisingly absent from the "Powered by ATI" market. Hopefully it makes an appearance soon since Sapphire cards seem to carry 30-40USD difference under the ATI OEM cards.



Product
Current
Price
S+H
Week
Change
Link
BizRate
Video NVIDIA
ASUS GeForce4 Ti4200
$149.99
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
BFG Asylum GeForceFX 5800
$399.99
$0.00
N/A
ENPC
Compare Prices
Chaintech GeForce4 Ti4200 GT20
$115.00
$0.00
$-10.00
AllStarShop
Compare Prices
Chaintech GeForce4 Ti4600
$227.00
$0.00
N/A
NewEgg
Compare Prices
Gainward GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB
$133.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
MSI GeForce4 Ti4200 128MB
$151.99
$1.00
$2.99
GoogleGear
Compare Prices
MSI GeForce4 Ti4600
$257.25
$-0.00
$0.00
AllStarShop
Compare Prices
PNY GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB
$125.00
$0.00
$-3.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
PNY GeForce4 Ti4600
$241.99
$1.50
N/A
GoogleGear
Compare Prices
PNY Verto GeForceFX 5800
$399.99
$0.00
N/A
ENPC
Compare Prices
Video Other
Matrox G450 32MB
$84.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
Matrox G550 32MB
$95.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices
Matrox Parhelia 128MB
$325.00
$0.00
$0.00
NewEgg
Compare Prices

We waited. We waited some more. Another 8 months went by and we were still waiting. Well, we are still technically waiting. NewEgg and ENPC are now taking pre-orders for GeForceFX 5800 cards. As rumor would hold true, it does appear as if the 5800 Ultra has been canceled, but those who already pre-ordered a card will still receive one.

More problems seem to have plagued the card as ridicule and speculation has forced NVIDIA to recall the current 5800 cards from production in order to redesign the fan and packaging on the card. Most sources speculate we will see the card finally available for retail on March 31/April 1st. Hopefully, that is not some kind of cruel April Fool's joke. GeForceFX's strange journey seems almost freakishly akin to the rise and fall of the Voodoo4/5 series video cards.

Also absent are the Ti4600 cards from this week's guide. Unfortunately, it seems like manufacturers are trying their best to dump inventory of these old cards. The cards that were not relabled as Ti4800's or Ti4600-8X have simply been dumped due to lack of demand. What further complicates matters is that NV31 appears to be the inevitable replacement for the Ti4600 and thus directly compete with RV350. NVIDIA also seems to be largely ignoring GeForceFX 5800 NV30 in favor of developing NV35 to directly compete with R350. Yes, NVIDIA's marketing confuses us too.

Furthermore, controversy has spun its web around the upcoming GeForceFX NV30 chip as the "4x2" architecture issues continue to surface. For those of you who are not familiar, apparently many sources are claiming that the NV30 chipset contains only 4 rendering pipelines as opposed to the 8 that NVIDIA unveiled at COMDEX. The catch is that each pipeline contains 2 TMUs which should result in the the promised 8 textures per clock, but only when multitexturing.

On an unrelated note longtime NVIDIA partner VisionTek continues their anti-NVIDIA campaign while still lacking any production products. Perhaps Hartford is relying on VisionTek's "good name" in order to build a stronger base of operations before actually releasing cards to the public.

Maybe RV350 vs NV31 will be more interesting than extra delayed R300 and NV30 matchup. Hopefully we do not have to wait another 9 months to see any NVIDIA developments. Meh.

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