eVGA Geforce GTX 260 for $214 (AMIR) at Newegg (USA)
 

eVGA’s GTX 260 video card is now available from NewEgg at the low, low price of $279.99. I just happen to have here a mail in rebate form (pdf) that will also get you $30 off of that price. So if you can wait for the rebate to process your total cost will have been $249.00. But wait, there’s more! Use coupon code VGA724X25 and chop another $25 off of the price. Now you’re talking at $225. You’ve got to buy this by the 31st of July to take advantage of the mail in rebate.

http://www.arsgeek.com/2008/07/25/ev...atively-cheap/

I bought this on Thursday. ;) The price was actually $214 AMIR as there is a second $10 rebate + free shipping.

This is the "Superclocked" edition, not stock clocked. Small bonus. :) Almost wish I'd paid for expedited shipping, going to be a huge upgrade over my 8800GTS 320mb.

Updated! Thanks for the info; what made you choose GTX260 over HD4870 as they are both at the €225-250 price range. Doesn't the HD4870 offer higher performance?

Biggest reason is price, cheapest HD 4870 costs $255 AMIR! Second reason is performance, the HD 4870 in most games was mostly a tie with the GTX 260 around 1920x1200. Overclocked GTX 260 wins most benchmarks. Third, warranty! Only ATI card with lifetime warranty is Visentek. I would prefer XFX first, but eVGA is second best for warranty.

The HD 4870 is a better card for 2560x1600 or 8xAA, but neither of which I plan to use...

Fourth reason: Folding@Home

HD 4870 Folding@home scores ~2200PPD.
GTX 260 Folding@home scores ~65000PPD. (Conservative estimate)

Folding@home PPD should double on HD 4850/4870 once Standford optimizes their GPU2 client to use all 800 shaders, but still is low compared to GT200.

$450+shipping video card for $215 shipped w/ factory overclock, to good a buy to resist.

Edit: My thanks to ATI. :D

yup, without ATI HD4870 you would have paid $350+ for that same card:)

Here in .BE cheapest HD4870 is €225 http://www.tones.be/shop_product.php?idx=105512
cheapest GTX 260 is €270
http://www.tones.be/shop_product.php?idx=105511

it's a no brainer; ATI has huge lead in price/performance here

ATI had a huge lead when GTX 260 was $450 and 4870 was $300, but now that the 260 is almost $50 cheaper (with this deal) it was an easy choice to make. My single concern is GT200b which should arrive this August/September, but I am betting prices on original GTX 260 parts will not drop below $215 anyway. Was already $30 below MSRP + $65 discount ontop of that, and was not even the base stock-clocked model.

I did not know any ATI card had a lifetime warranty, finding out Visentek does was a major surprise. I would have enjoyed playing with an ATI card just to find the differences (Better drivers, perhaps?), and with WC could have overclocked the 4870 like crazy, but NVIDIA still had the better fit. No point in burning ~200w of power folding and only producing 1/3 of the results. (So much for 1.2TFLOPS of performance, eh?)

My watercooling parts are going to get here today, ordered @ the same time as the GTX 260 from Newegg but will be Monday or Tuesday before the GPU shows up...gah. :rolleyes:

in EU life-time warranty is not legal, I think XFX/eVGA are down to 10-years which is well beyond product life cycle:)

I had heard that... crazy laws ;) Also no 2nd-user warranty either, and also removing the card's cooler or overclocking still voids the warranty outside the US I believe.

GDDR3 is extremely failure prone... am hoping GDDR5 fixes the high degredation issue, but until then ANY GDDR3 type GPU I buy must have a 5+ year warranty. The GDDR3 chips on my Foxconn 8800GTS 320mb are failing, I never ran them overclocked beyond brief testing periods. Currently have them underclocked to 1600MHz.

if you are second user and got the invoice; you can claim warranty without issue here.

you are correct about the cooler, but OC is allowed though.(XFX/eVGA... others don't play extreme)

US-side, for eVGA if you do not register the card on their website within 30 days of purchase, only 1-year warranty applies. Are you sure this is not also true outside of US, would expect so? Or is this also illegal in the EU?