NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT: The Only Card That Matters

$199 or $249?

For this launch, we have been given a $50 price range for 8800 GT. NVIDIA told us that there will be no $200 8800 GT parts available at launch, but they should come along after prices settle down a bit. Initially, we thought that the 256MB parts would be $200 and the 512MB parts $250. It turns out that we were mistaken.

Not only that, but we can expect the stock clocked 512MB 8800 GT to hit $200 at the low end. The 256MB part, which won't show up until the end of November, will hit prices below $200. Upon hearing Ujesh Desai, NVIDIA's General Manager of Desktop GPUs, explain this incredible projection, my internal monologue was somehow rerouted to my mouth and I happened to exclaim (with all too much enthusiasm) "you're crazy!" As an aside, we at AnandTech try very hard to maintain a high level of professionalism in all our dealings with industry players. Such a response is quite out of character for any of our editors. Regardless, I continued on to say that it seems NVIDIA has started taking notes from local commercials we all see about the deep discount auto dealers who are slashing prices on everything. Apparently I was the second person that day to react that way to the information.

Honestly, depending on how quickly the 512MB 8800 GT falls to $200, this launch could truly be revolutionary. As Jen-Hsun asked the crowd of journalists at NVIDIA's recent Editor's Day: "Do you remember the Ti-4200?" And we really could see a product to rival the impact of that one here today. But even at $250, the 8800 GT is an incredible buy, and if it takes until after the holiday season for prices to come down to $200, we won't be surprised. When the 256MB part hits the scene, we will certainly be interested in seeing where price and performance shake out, and whatever AMD has up its sleeves could also prove interesting and change the landscape as well. NVIDIA has been fairly accurate in giving us pricing we can expect to see on the street, and we really hope that trend continues.

Of course, since this is an NVIDIA GPU, we can also expect overclocked versions from almost every company building a card based on G92. These will definitely come with a price premium, but we are really hoping to see the price range eventually settle into a baseline of $200 with overclocked cards topping out at $250. But we will have to wait and see what happens, and even if the price never falls that much the 512MB 8800 GT is a very good value. There's no way to lose with this one.