Its just how it goes. The 8800gtx was around $600 at launch, the ultra about $800. They didn't fall very fast either, the gtx is still $350+ (thats what, like a year and a half old). How can nvidia get away w/ that? They have no competition up there. They are indisputabely the fastest cards around. The gx2, although the fastest card in town right now, is challenged enough by the 3870x2 that the prices had to drop a decent amount. If the 4870 can compete up top, the prices would go down.

Same reason intel can sell a q9550 for $500+, they have no competition. If amd was competing in the top rungs, we could get that for less than $300. Thats why although I own intel and nvidia, I route for amd/ati all the way.

magibegI just think its a little soon to be counting anyone out quite yet. Not only did ati double the number of shaders but they also increased the shader clock on them by a fair margin, from 775 to 1050mhz, a fair increase from any view. They also doubled their TMU's. ROP's supposedly don't have as much importance anymore when things are shader focused. Even so though, the nvidia cards listed there are MUCH more expensive than the ati cards that are coming out.

I agree with this statement - sure, nVidia's looks better on paper, and even still, this new series might still topple the HD4000 (we'll have to see), but it's still recycled tech. nVidia can only revamp and sandbag this GPU but so many times, and sooner or later ATI will catch up. What's to say that nVidia's next brand new GPU design won't be an achilles heel? Asides, like I mentioned before, ATI was close on the heels of G92 with the HD3000 series - not topping out in most games, but was at least able to keep up with respectable performance. The R700 line was designed alongside the R600, so we already have an idea of baseline performance . . . just trying to say that contrary to popular belief, the R700 could seriously surprise everyone, including nVidia.

We'll just have to see - no one here can really make 100% certain claims or judgements until we see how both camps perform. This is going to be a heated competition the last half of this year, the likes of which we haven't seen in a couple of years now. Both camp's offerings look superb on paper, now we just need to see how well they deliver.

magibegROP's supposedly don't have as much importance anymore when things are shader focused.

i gotta disagree there, ROPS account for the sheer pixel filling muscle, and pixel fillrate accounts for ALOT of your FPS

After 2 or 3 optical shrinks and 2 or 3 years from now G280 (or whatever future name it will get) will be a good and cheap GPU for everybody.

$600 is fine for a high end card.... my friend bought a 7800GTX back in '05 on the week of release for $600. that was a decent deal because the card owned everything else on the market.

don't forget the 8800 ultra before when it come, it release over 800$

yep because Nvidia is top dog they get to set prices on the best cards out there. And the best card right now is the 9800GTX, the dual core cards are great, but some games dont scale that well with dual graphics and some not at all even in this day and age. I think Nvidia realizes that the market for SLI is still small and games are still far more optimized for single core/single card setups than for dual options and thats why they are making one massive GPU to do the work. In the long run its smarter, because when they can shrink it in 10 months or so agian they can make a GX2 off shoot if they want to and make a truly awesome card. Always start off strong with the core then worry about putting 2 there, because you can't always be assured that dual will always preform good.

department76$600 is fine for a high end card.... my friend bought a 7800GTX back in '05 on the week of release for $600. that was a decent deal because the card owned everything else on the market.

i hope that was a 512mb version otherwise ouch.