Sapphire Radeon 9600XT Atlantis 128M DDR

aaf

Ok, I'm going to be building my first pc in a few weeks time. I've being doing a lot of research into it and I'm pretty sure what components I'm gonna need. The room I'm gonna be putting the pc in is going to be redecorated over the next few weeks and won't be ready until the start of the 2nd week in March so I have that much time to buy and build. My question, eventually, is this. The Sapphire Radeon 9600XT Atlantis 128M DDR (double-click on link) retail version is on special on komplett.ie this week for €148. Should I buy it now or will it come down in price towards the end of Feb? I'm in no rush to purchase any components as stated above. Also, I'm not a big gamer so do I really need it? Would the NVidia nForce2 on the Abit NF7-S V2.0 Socket A S-ATA motherboard do a good enough job for me? That motherboard is leading the shortlist of motherboards I've made. The others are Asus A7N8X Deluxe/GD mainboard Rev 2.0 and the Abit KV8-MAX3 mainboard for Socket 754. All advice welcome. Thanks

Venom

GFX cards do then to drop in value faster than other hardware in your pc. How fast a drop tho is hard to predict tho. However, the Sapphire Radeon 9800XT Extreme Edition Atlantis 256MB is about to hit the shelves (waiting on one myself) and this might cause a drop in price for the other Sapphire products. Tho in all fairness €148 is bugger all for a card of that quality so you might be better snapping it up now.

Woden

i'd wait until closer to buying time if it doesn't work out big deal kompletts special is probably only about €10-15 off, possibly will drop by that much then and the 9800 pro's seem to be coming down quite rapidly too

Creamy Goodness

yeh 9800 pro's are 266 now for a powercolor and 308 for sapphire

aaf

Cheers lads. I may hang on a few weeks so. What do you think of those Motherboards I listed? The Abit NF7-S V2.0 Socket A S-ATA is firm favourite to get the nod. Any comments?

Woden

yes you'll get many nods on that board, i've got it myself tis good stuff, the other option is the asus' fancy nforce option, both are great boards tbh

Venom

Check out the DFI Lanparty series of boards as well. They have been getting kick ass reviews for both chip types.