February has been a great month for graphics card buyers: prices have been dropping hard across the board. A possible reason for this is the introduction of Nvidia's new 9600 GT.The new Geforce 9600 GT 512MB offers performance just below that of the 8800 GT - and on par with the Radeon 3870 - for the exceptionally low price of ~$180. ATI has responded to this threat by lowering Radeon 3870 prices to the same range; indeed, the entire Geforce and Radeon lines seem to have been lowered in what looks to be a bit of a price war. The end result can only be good news for consumers, as it is now possible to buy a graphics card capable of real-world 1920x1200 gaming for less than $200!This price shift makes it difficult to recommend the $450 dual-GPU Radeon 3870 X2 anymore. Two full-fledged Radeon 3870 cards can be bought and placed in a Crossfire configuration for almost $100 less!
July saw some of the fastest dropping prices on high-end cards that we’ve ever seen in the history of these “best gaming graphics cards for the money” articles.