help me pick my next video card

[schmosef]

I think he specifically said he did NOT have enough power to run those crazy-hungry nVidia cards.

nVidia - our motto is "who gives a crap about the environment or good engineering? Let's use our stolen designs to make gigantic heat sinks and market them to retarded FPS kiddies!"

I found a Shuttle site which said that the 6800GT cards will work. I assume that the 6600GT would have worked too.

I prefer ATI because they are Canadian, and close by (I drive by there all the time), and I'm constantly meeting people who work for them.

The PowerColor 9800Pro and the Matrox P650 PCI came in at about half what I would have paid for a more modern part. Even though I wasn't looking to do this on the cheap, I'm happy with the performance I'm getting for my dollar.

Next year, maybe the x800 (or whatever ATI comes out with by then) will not be so constrained and there might be more options for an upgrade.

Who knows, maybe Matrox will come out with new GPU by then too! LOL!

[Tjalfe]

I've never heard of XFX before. I don't think that they sell to Canada yet (at least not through any of the major tech distributors like Ingram, Synnex, Tech Data, Supercom, etc). I'd want to buy this through distribution so I don't have to pay retail.

I've already ordered the PowerColor 9800Pro. It should do fine for what I need for the next year at least. And I'm glad that I get to keep a Matrox part in my PC too!

I believe I have seen XFX brand at futureshop and the likes.. ..
since you have access to wholesales prices, what is the current markup like for high end video cards?.. it has been several years since I had a chance to look at those

[schmosef]

Lemme take a look a look at futureshop.ca...

Ok... I would say that their retail price is about 10% higher than my wholesale price on high end cards. With that % increasing slightly on more mainstream cards.

For example, they want $360 for the ATI 9800Pro that I almost bought. My cost would have been $300 or less (my sales rep can usually drop it a few dollars).

I bought the PowerColor 9800Pro for $240.

I stand corrected about XFX. I still don't know who they distribute through though. Their website says they have a channel partner program, so maybe they self-distribute?

There's a lot of brands that use smaller distributors because they can't get much attention from the bigger players or because the bigger players don't think they can be relied on to ship on time. For example, Matrox got dropped by Ingram around the time that the G400 came out. My sales rep told me that they were sick and tired of Matrox never meeting their ship dates.

[DGhost]

what kind of XPC?

I ran two different SN85G4's with Athlon 64's and 1gb of ram each and 5700 Ultra's or 6600GT's in them. they performed flawlessly. i acctually used XFX brand ones for both of them because they both had dual-DVI. tested under a variety of OS's as well.

[schmosef]

It's an SB75S. Like I said, Shuttle's site said that the 6800GT will work so I wasn't concerned. I've made the purchase now. I'm about to shut down and install.

[mmp121]

I've never heard of XFX before. I don't think that they sell to Canada yet (at least not through any of the major tech distributors like Ingram, Synnex, Tech Data, Supercom, etc). I'd want to buy this through distribution so I don't have to pay retail.

I've already ordered the PowerColor 9800Pro. It should do fine for what I need for the next year at least. And I'm glad that I get to keep a Matrox part in my PC too!

Forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't US distributors send stuff to CA? IE newegg had the non-retail OEM version of the XFX 6600GT card for USD $189.00

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-150-085&depa=0

I don't know how they would do the CDN to USD conversion and then of course there is S&H to allow for.

[Tjalfe]

Forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't US distributors send stuff to CA? IE newegg had the non-retail OEM version of the XFX 6600GT card for USD $189.00

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-150-085&depa=0

I don't know how they would do the CDN to USD conversion and then of course there is S&H to allow for.

there are several who would ship to canada, but they usually charge a small fortune for shipping, even though it really is no further than to many places in the states, and then we have to pay sales tax on the item.. and if we are really lucky, as I was once, there is duty on top of that... now if the item needs to be returned, it would be an equially big problem

[schmosef]

there are several who would ship to canada, but they usually charge a small fortune for shipping, even though it really is no further than to many places in the states, and then we have to pay sales tax on the item.. and if we are really lucky, as I was once, there is duty on top of that... now if the item needs to be returned, it would be an equially big problem

Where you can really get stung is the duty and brokerage charges. Don't get me started. The customs brokerage industry is a complete and total scam.

[schmosef]

It's an SB75S. Like I said, Shuttle's site said that the 6800GT will work so I wasn't concerned. I've made the purchase now. I'm about to shut down and install.

Ok, I'm back up and running.

Would you believe that this Matrox P650 PCI card with dual DVI only supports up to 75Hz refresh rate? No matter what resolution! Granted, the card is dual DVI and intended for flat panel screens, but the box contained two DVI to RGB adapters! You'd think that they'd at least support 85Hz on a card that retails for $340 on their web site!... Way to go Matrox. It's a good thing I paid wholesale...

(I wonder if this refresh rate limitation is a driver issue or an actual hardware limitaion. Maybe there's a way to hack the driver to allow higher refresh rates.)

The ATI card seems ok. I haven't had a chace to do anything to work it out yet. Maybe I'll download 3D mark...

[schmosef]

wouldn't US distributors send stuff to CA?

One more thought... In channal parlance, Retailers like Newegg, EB, Futureshop, Best Buy, etc. are called resellers, not distributors. Distributors don't typically sell to the public. They are also limited in what region they are allowed to sell to. It all depends on their agreement with the manufacturer.

I'm somewhere between a reseller and a VAR (value added reseller) in that I do more than just sell stuff.

[Tjalfe]

Lemme take a look a look at futureshop.ca...

Ok... I would say that their retail price is about 10% higher than my wholesale price on high end cards. With that % increasing slightly on more mainstream cards.

For example, they want $360 for the ATI 9800Pro that I almost bought. My cost would have been $300 or less (my sales rep can usually drop it a few dollars).

I bought the PowerColor 9800Pro for $240.

I stand corrected about XFX. I still don't know who they distribute through though. Their website says they have a channel partner program, so maybe they self-distribute?

There's a lot of brands that use smaller distributors because they can't get much attention from the bigger players or because the bigger players don't think they can be relied on to ship on time. For example, Matrox got dropped by Ingram around the time that the G400 came out. My sales rep told me that they were sick and tired of Matrox never meeting their ship dates.

so a 10% markup for futureshop.. how about places like www.canadacomputers.com ?
I recall not being able to beat them for prices while I was working at a computer store.. their retail was within a few$ of wholesales.

I got my Radeon9800PRO from best buy back in october for $299 with a $50 mail in rebate, which I actually got, bringing it to $250

[schmosef]

Which distributors did that store use?

I don't really compete in that space. I own a consulting company. We sell to businesses.

IIRC, Canada Computers' list prices are 3-4% cash discounted. Even still, whenever I've been asked to sell a specific part, and it's in stock, we've been able to match or beat their price. I seem to recall that some of their prices were very close to wholesale cost, and some had quite a bit of leeway.

[Tjalfe]

Which distributors did that store use?

I don't really compete in that space. I own a consulting company. We sell to businesses.

IIRC, Canada Computers' list prices are 3-4% cash discounted. Even still, whenever I've been asked to sell a specific part, and it's in stock, we've been able to match or beat their price. I seem to recall that some of their prices were very close to wholesale cost, and some had quite a bit of leeway.

I worked at a compucentre store back then.. one where the staff was actually fairly well educated, unlike most of them.. we had to go get parts through Multimicro, which I believe is only for Hartco owned franchises. We could order parts in from most other vendors, through dropship orders, but head office gave us "special" pricing (.. most of the time we got dropships from supercom.

It is nice to hear though that I won't be ripped off too badly, buying from Canada Computers.

[schmosef]

I knew CompuCentre used Supercom because they used to advertise "Touch" systems, which is Supercom's brand name for their custom integration service.

We used to sell a lot of Touch builds because Supercom would extend all the warranties of whatever was included to three years. But we found over time that the Touch builds had an exceptionally high failure rate, like 7 or 8 out or 10 within 3 years, whereas the systems that we built ourselves, from parts mainly bought from Supercom, had a failure rate of less than 1 in 30. So now we tend to sell HP desktops to our business customers and self-integrate for our customers that want something custom.

[schmosef]

Ok, I'm back up and running.

Would you believe that this Matrox P650 PCI card with dual DVI only supports up to 75Hz refresh rate? No matter what resolution! Granted, the card is dual DVI and intended for flat panel screens, but the box contained two DVI to RGB adapters! You'd think that they'd at least support 85Hz on a card that retails for $340 on their web site!... Way to go Matrox. It's a good thing I paid wholesale...

(I wonder if this refresh rate limitation is a driver issue or an actual hardware limitaion. Maybe there's a way to hack the driver to allow higher refresh rates.)

The ATI card seems ok. I haven't had a chace to do anything to work it out yet. Maybe I'll download 3D mark...

Quick update. I wanted to be sure that my refresh rate problem wasn't an issue with the SE drivers so I just uninstalled them and installed the PowerDesk drivers instead. Under the PowerDesk drivers I am able to set my monitor to 85Hz, so I'm happy.

I guess I'll report the bug to Haig on Monday... The last time I used the PowerDesk drivers I found a bug in the way they restored Visual Studio from a minimized state. Haig was the one who told me to use the SE drivers instead. I hope that the issue has been fixed in the PowerDesk drivers by now.