Thanks for joining us for another edition of our video card price guide. We've got quite a few updates on recent new generation and last generation's graphic cards, but first, we would like to remind our readers to try out our RTPE if they haven't already done so. It's definitely a valuable source for most of your computer hardware buying needs!

We've picked up quite a few mail-in-rebates (MIR's) this time around. Many of the prices of the new generation, ultra high-end cards are very close to the high-end card pricing. If you are currently looking for a new video card, an ultra high-end or mid-range card is the best gaming option. Bang for the buck, the high-end cards aren't there.

The 6800 GS cards have been quite a hit, bringing many of the prices up fairly high. If you are looking to go with this card, be sure to pick one up as soon as possible as there will not be many surplus cards floating around too much longer. We can see that the 6800 Ultra cards have nearly reached their EOL, and we expect them to be out of stock soon.

Now on to the meat of our guide, starting off with the ultra high-end cards....

Ultra High-End Graphics

Most of these ultra high-end cards have gone up in price since our last video card price guide, but a few have gone down significantly. Leading the group this week is the eVGA GeForce 7800GT 256MB with VIVO [RTPE: 256-P2-N515] going for $300 after a $20 instant rebate along with a $20 MIR.

If you're like some of us AnandTech editors who dislike dealing with MIRs, coming in very close behind the eVGA card is the Leadtek GeForce 7800GT 256MB [RTPE: PX7800GT] which dropped $56, bringing it to a final price of about $310; the lowest recorded price for this card, which you can see from the graph below:

Leadtek GeForce 7800GT 256MB

If you're looking for the best gaming performance possible, you will want to consider the 7800GTX line of cards. Of these, the best bargain (no, we don't consider a $450 card to be a bargain) we found is the MSI GeForce 7800GTX 256MB [RTPE: NX7800GTX-VT2D256E] on sale for $450 after a $33.00 price drop. At the moment, our RTPE is only showing one version of the 512MB 7800GTX from BFG [RTPE: BFGR78512GTXOC] which is selling for about $750 after approximately a $42 price increase.

These high-end video cards are not something we unequivocally recommend you purchase, but if you're they type who has to have the best card available, then the 7800 series is what you will want to consider, namely the GT or GTX versions. For most of us average Joe's, we recommend you take a gander at our mid-range cards, which we'll get to in a moment.

Competing with the 7800 series, we have ATI's X1800 series. The 7800 GT generally outperforms the X1800 XL, but it's not a huge difference. The problem is that the XL cards go for around $360 while the GT runs closer to $310. The ASUS Radeon X1800XL 256MB [RTPE: EAX1800XL/2DHTV/256] is $359, or if you're one of those people that likes mail-in rebates, you can go with the ATI Radeon X1800XL 256MB [RTPE: 100-435703] for $340. Honestly, and unless you're a diehard ATI fan, we'd pick the 7800 GT over the X1800 XL.

This is our first price guide where the XT models are actually available, and while the price is rather high, it's generally better than the 256 MB 7800 GTX cards. These cards have only been on the market for about two weeks (or less), and anyone anxious enough to buy them in that first week probably paid close to $700! Since then, prices have plummeted to slightly under MSRP, and you can now buy an X1800 XT for "only" $500. Sapphire leads the pack with the Sapphire Radeon X1800XT 512MB [RTPE: 100134], so that would definitely be our pick for ATI people looking to spend over $500. You can see how the price has changed in the past two weeks in the following graph:

Sapphire Radeon X1800XT 512MB

Unless you crave the best performance at any cost, as with the NVIDIA cards, we would once again recommend that you look to the midrange cards rather than the X1800 series. And of course, for those willing to spend over $700 for multiple cards, SLI is available for the 7800 series while we're still waiting for CrossFire X1800 cards. Here's the complete list of X1800 cards.

Like we took the time to mention last time around, we would like to reiterate that it is better, performance and price-wise, to go with a single GeForce 7800 GTX card rather than two 6800 Ultra's in SLI. The 6800 Ultra's are being discontinued and are becoming more and more difficult to find. Dropping roughly $310 is the BFG GeForce 6800 Ultra OC 256MB [RTPE: BFGR68256UOCX] going for $275.00. Please do take notice that vendors are extremely low on supply and expect them to run out fairly soon. The discontinued BFG card actually qualifies as a high-end price range, but the remainder of the 6800 Ultra cards are basically high-performance cards at an ultra high cost. Quite a few of them cost as much or more than a 7800 GTX!

By the way, have we mentioned that purchasing a single high-end card now and planning on upgrading with the second high-end card in the future might be a bad idea? There's probably a decent number of people out there that by the 6800 Ultra for a lot of money, with the intent of purchasing a second one when the price dropped below $300. Now they're stuck with a single card and the option to upgrade to SLI at a premium that just isn't worth it. Until ATI and NVIDIA get their multi-card solutions to work across generations, we would suggest you either go the whole hog and buy two cards initially, or just buy a single card and stick with it. There will be occasions -- like the 6800 GT -- were the prices do drop to reasonable levels, but we certainly wouldn't plan on that.

High-End Graphics

As we stated earlier, with prices of the ultra high-end and mid-range cards being so competitive, we do not recommend the purchase one of these high-end video cards. However, AGP users as yet do not have ultra high-end options.

AGP cards have developed a tendency to be priced significantly higher than their PCI-E counterparts. At the moment, your best AGP option would be an ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB [RTPE: 100-435508] going for about $285.

With the PCI-E X800XL cards, two caught our attention: the Sapphire Radeon X800XL 256MB [RTPE: 100105] and the Connect3D Radeon X800XL 256MB [RTPE: 3028C]. Both of these cards are on sale for about $240 shipped. If you're in the market for an All-In-Wonder card, for a little over $290, you can pick up the ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB A-I-W [RTPE: 100-714301]. We're noticing three 512MB cards from Abit, Gigabyte, and Sapphire, but we strongly recommend against them because of the high price tags. Besides, 512 MB cards have yet to show any real advantage over 256 MB cards; the only reason the latest ATI and NVIDIA cards perform better is because they have fast RAM, not because they have more RAM.

Upon further inspection, we note the X800XL A-I-W is on sale for $290. If you are looking for an All-In-Wonder, rather than the X800XL, we suggest the ATI Radeon X800XT 256MB A-I-W [RTPE: 100-714200] for the same price. The cheapest X800XT that we are seeing is exactly the same price as the MSI 7800GT we recommended on the previous page. It's a rather obvious decision which card to go with.

We would apply the same general rule with these 6800GT cards as we did with the X800XT cards. The cheapest card at the moment is the PNY GeForce 6800GT 256MB [RTPE: VCG6800GXPB] going for $274.00. $35 more gets you a 7800 GT, which is significantly faster. Unfortunately for the AGP holdouts, the cheapest 6800 GT is running $340, and you can get either of the new architectures. We wouldn't recommend spending that much money on outdated technology anyway, and with current prices you could likely get a PCI express motherboard and a 7800 GT for less than the price of a hypothetical 7800 GT AGP.

Mid-Range Graphics

Moving on to the mid-range cards, the Sapphire Radeon X800GTO² 256MB [RTPE: 100130] is going for about $220. That's about a $30 decrease since our last video card price guide. Currently, it has become quite difficult to be able to find a Connect3D X800GTO that will unlock to an X850. You would be taking a big chance going with that card, if you had in mind that you would be able to unlock it like before. Meanwhile, for $170 shipped, the PowerColor Radeon X800GTO 256MB with VIVO [RTPE: X800GTO256MBDDR3] is a difficult deal to pass up.

As the GeForce 6800 GS cards have become more popular, the prices have also shot up. At the moment, the eVGA GeForce 6800GS 256MB [RTPE: 256-P2-N386] is the best deal, going for $207.00 shipped. Other's having shot up considerably higher, all the way up to $300! The 6800 GS is definitely one of the cards to consider this holiday season, but only if the price is right: $300 puts it in the same league as the 7800 GT.

Looking at the 6600 GT front, we have the XFX GeForce 6600GT (AGP) 128MB [RTPE: PV-T43A-ND] leading the pack, going for an even $130 after a $20 MIR. This is about as much as we would recommend spending on AGP card, given that few if any motherboards will support it in the future.

For you PCI-E users, the Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 128MB [RTPE: GV-NX66T128D] is on sale for $122 shipped. There are a few others which are coming in close behind, like the Chaintech [RTPE: SE6600G-128] at $128, the XFX [RTPE: PV-T43G-ND] for $117 after MIR and the eVGA [RTPE: 128-P2-N368] for $110 after MIR. All of which are well under $130, so for the less demanding gamers these are great buys.

The X700 and X700 Pro are decent mid-range cards, although the 6600 and 6600 GT are generally considered better. For about $100, the Sapphire Radeon X700 128MB [RTPE: 100121SR] is an okay buy. The same goes for the Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro 128MB [RTPE: 100595], which is currently selling for $122.

The X1600XT has just recently hit the market and is currently being listed at only one vendor. From PowerColor, the Radeon X1600XT 256MB [RTPE: R53C-TVD3] is going for about $180. We're likely to see more of these cards to reach other retailers later this week. Given the performance preview, they're really not looking too interesting, but at least they're retailing below MSRP. As long as you can get a 6800 GS for around $200 - or the X800 GTO for $180 - X1600 is in something of a difficult spot.

Low-End Graphics

Since our last price guide, we currently have three AIB manufacturer's producing the newly released X1300 graphics cards. Both the MSI Radeon X1300 Pro 256MB [RTPE: RX1300PRO-TD256E] on sale for about $110 and the Sapphire Radeon X1300 256MB [RTPE: 100141] going for $100, seem like respectable deals. Too bad they don't cost much less than the 6600 GT, which ends of being a faster card.

For those who have no real need for great graphics, these low-end cards should be suitable. They're better than onboard graphics and also have the TV-Out option which many people like to use to watch movies on their televisions.

And that wraps up another video card price guide. Stay tuned next week for our recommendations and pricing!