I just bought a GTX 280. Feel free to comment on how stupid I am.

EVGA is awesome, though.

That's great Kuddles, I'm glad you could take advantage of the offer.

Duoae wrote:

Seriously though, it's not that EVGA are losing money on this - they're probably well compensated by Nvidia.

Do you really think Nvidia is offering video card companies rebates for cards already purchased. Considering XFX and EVGA are the only companies doing it right now, I'm not so sure. Regardless, this is the fourth card I bought from them and haven't had any problems with the company. Getting my money back is just icing on the cake.

I dig EVGA. This move is right capitol of them, pip-pip and wotnot!

I will confirm the EVGA love.

Kumbaya, EVGA, Kumbaya...

kuddles wrote:
Duoae wrote:

Seriously though, it's not that EVGA are losing money on this - they're probably well compensated by Nvidia.

Do you really think Nvidia is offering video card companies rebates for cards already purchased. Considering XFX and EVGA are the only companies doing it right now, I'm not so sure. Regardless, this is the fourth card I bought from them and haven't had any problems with the company. Getting my money back is just icing on the cake.

Yeah, it's a cool move. I think that the companies are. There were already pretty pretty slim pickings on the 260/280 for the partners - so much so that a couple of prominently Nvidia only manufacturers have announced ATI products. It doesn't make sense for them to eat an admittedley small loss on cards due to Nvidia's crappy market savviness.

Duoae wrote:

There were already pretty pretty slim pickings on the 260/280 for the partners - so much so that a couple of prominently Nvidia only manufacturers have announced ATI products.

You mean companies can already do that? I assumed there were some kind of exclusivity deals at play with these companies, because otherwise it never made sense to me why a video card manufacturer wouldn't make cards for both Nvidia and ATI.

Also, EVGA gets props for honouring their new prices in their step-up program. Forums are filled with glee from users who went from the 9800GTX they just bought a couple months ago to a GTX 260 for less than $30 in most cases. That's gotta pinch since they can't actually turn back and sell those cards for anywhere close to the price they were two months ago.

kuddles wrote:
Duoae wrote:

There were already pretty pretty slim pickings on the 260/280 for the partners - so much so that a couple of prominently Nvidia only manufacturers have announced ATI products.

You mean companies can already do that? I assumed there were some kind of exclusivity deals at play with these companies, because otherwise it never made sense to me why a video card manufacturer wouldn't make cards for both Nvidia and ATI.

As far as i would imagine there are very few exclusivity deals in writing for hardware partners. Most of them are down to cut prices on chips and ease of dealing with the brand (i.e. the sell-through or whatever they call that). They generally will go with whoever is perceived best by the public and generally that's Nvidia.
The example i was thinking about above was Gainward who sell only NVidia products but have just brought the 4XXX line to their catalogue too. I thought there was another company that announced a switch recently but i can't find the press release so maybe i'm imagining it

[edit] Just finding out that these rebates only seem to apply in the US as the european sites have no mention of the programme... this crap is getting ridiculous. I hate this sentiment >:(

Wow, this was a great thread to revisit -- thanks, Mr. Spammer!

(and, see? I was quite pro-ATI, four years ago. Today, not so much.)

Since this thread has been necro'd by a spammer, I might as well update this by saying I never learn: I bought an ASUS 680 Direct CU II TOP not too long ago even though my 6970 was running games just fine and I actually spend much less time gaming these days.

Well, for what it's worth, kuddles, I bought a 680, too.

Surprised you didn't buy EVGA, after how well they treated you!

(edit: I just checked, and I bought EVGA, due purely to brand loyalty -- I'd forgotten this particular incident, but I'm sure it influenced the decision.)

Yeah, this is actually my first non-EVGA Nvidia card. I went with the Asus one because there was an open box one available for a crazy discount, and because I keep my computer in my living room and also use it as a media center so wanted to go with one that had a quieter non-reference fan.

I won't be going back to ATI/AMD anytime soon, though, because owning that 6970 was a non-stop problem. I know, everybody has their own stories about specific brands, but for me it was just constant issues (literally every new game I bought ended up having some problem exclusive to AMD cards that I had to wait out) and I just didn't like the way their drivers worked.

Yeah, that was me toward the end of the 5870 era as well. It was especially terrible at retrogaming. New games, and old games, would frequently break. The card was only good at running the ones in the middle. Plus, with them abandoning their VLIW architecture, it seemed smart to jump ship... the 5870 would get less and less attention, being obsolete, but the 7XXX series would have all the problems of a brand new, from-scratch architecture. Plus, of course, their prices were pretty much insane when they first shipped.

I've felt pretty well-served with the 680. I really only have one issue... Dawn of War 1 will sometimes get hitchy framerates for short periods, where the 5870 never did. But it's hard to reproduce reliably, so I haven't filed a bug report. And older games have tended to just work right away, no hassle at all.

And heh, I just realized that I wasn't classing DoW1 as an old game, but it came out seven years ago! Sheesh.

Seeing the thread title and not realizing it was 4 years old I was thinking "Yeah, probably not the smartest purchase".

The GTX 280 is four years old? I'm so out of the loop.

I actually bumped up to a GTX670 this past May, and I love it.

My videocard progression since this thread, which apparently started when I still had my 8800GTX:

8800GTX - I gave this to a friend for free.
GTX285 - I also gave this to a friend for free.
2 GTX460 - Up and sold the whole PC these were in, sans hard drives, to fund my Sandy Bridge build.
2 Radeon HD6950 - Sold these on GWJ. Performance was great when they worked. They often did not with new games though.
2 GTX 670

The 670's have, so far, been the most driver frustration free pair of videocards I've ever owned. sh*t just works.

Man, some people go through tech so often! I'm still on an x1950 pro at my dad's and a 560 (vanilla) at home!

Ive had a sandy bridge computer with a 560 in it as it cost me around 100 for the card. I bought it thinking I'll upgrade sometime in the future... the future has come and where are the games that are supposed to convince me to upgrade? Talk about engine efficiency these days. Games keep looking better and so far there hasnt been a reason to upgrade.

gtx 260 still going strong!
if 18-45 fps in Planetside 2 is strong,
..
the original Borderlands looks great.

sh*t, I still have a 250 GTS and I got that free when I had to RMA my 8800 GTS for a third time!

I keep wanting to get a better card but I never have the cash to burn.

And here I thought my 460 was long in the tooth.

Gaald wrote:

sh*t, I still have a 250 GTS and I got that free when I had to RMA my 8800 GTS for a third time!

I keep wanting to get a better card but I never have the cash to burn.

I've still got one of these too. I keep waiting for a solid sale on a 560ti, but man, those things absolutely refuse to drop below $200. It may be almost time to bite the bullet and put together an entirely new rig in the next year or so.

Gaald wrote:

sh*t, I still have a 250 GTS and I got that free when I had to RMA my 8800 GTS for a third time!

I keep wanting to get a better card but I never have the cash to burn.

Hah. I'm still rocking the 8800GT, patiently waiting for a good deal on a 660TI. Most of the stuff I have been playing on the PC these days isn't too demanding and surprisingly Skyrim ran great. If Nvidia didn't take so long to push out their latest generation of cards I would have had a new one last Christmas!

I'm still running a pair of 4850s. I keep expecting them to die, explode, or stop running new games. Hasn't happened yet, but I expect to be blown away when I finally pony up for the new hotness.

The 5870 I bought on super-sale last Christmas still does everything I need at 1920x1080.

Chaz wrote:
Gaald wrote:

sh*t, I still have a 250 GTS and I got that free when I had to RMA my 8800 GTS for a third time!

I keep wanting to get a better card but I never have the cash to burn.

I've still got one of these too. I keep waiting for a solid sale on a 560ti, but man, those things absolutely refuse to drop below $200. It may be almost time to bite the bullet and put together an entirely new rig in the next year or so.

Same here! I have been looking at getting a 560ti as my next card but I will be dammed if I pay over 200 bucks for one! It's really starting to tick me off that the prices won't drop.

Now you guys have me looking at new video cards on Newegg... I was fine w/ my GTX 260 but now it doesn't look as cool

Edit: This guy looks tempting...

Wait, so there are people out there who don't buy a new top-of-the-line video card every two years whether they need it or not? What a bunch of weirdos.