bang for teh buck (Video Card upgrades)

[Inverno]

http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com/ads/2008/10/17/36984/VisionTek-Radeon-HD-3650-1GB-Over-Clocked-PCI-Express-Video-Card

This is on sale this weekend from Fry's and wondering what people think of it vs other www.frys.com cards priced in the 80-110 range. Trying to upgrade my whole PC in the next week or so in the 250ish range and thats all I can budget for a video card. Not looking for 140 fps in crysis or nothing. I just want a good fps in warhammer and games like L4D, TF2, etc. Platform I am building from is a dual core AMD and 4gb of DDR2

[Slack3r78]

http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com/ads/2008/10/17/36984/VisionTek-Radeon-HD-3650-1GB-Over-Clocked-PCI-Express-Video-Card

This is on sale this weekend from Fry's and wondering what people think of it vs other www.frys.com (http://www.frys.com) cards priced in the 80-110 range. Trying to upgrade my whole PC in the next week or so in the 250ish range and thats all I can budget for a video card. Not looking for 140 fps in crysis or nothing. I just want a good fps in warhammer and games like L4D, TF2, etc. Platform I am building from is a dual core AMD and 4gb of DDR2
I just ordered myself a 9800GT last night per this thread. (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=1341) It's a hair above the price range you're talking about out of pocket ($125 shipped for the one I ordered) but comes down to about $100 after rebates and is a LOT more powerful than other cards near that price. The 4670 didn't look bad for around $80-90 when I was looking, but is nowhere close to the 9800 in terms of performance.

[Inverno]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150316

i think i may go with this over what i had before. Seems like a better deal in the long run. Hopefully fry's has a similarly priced setup.

[KingGorilla]

I just ordered myself a 9800GT last night per this thread. (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=1341) It's a hair above the price range you're talking about out of pocket ($125 shipped for the one I ordered) but comes down to about $100 after rebates and is a LOT more powerful than other cards near that price. The 4670 didn't look bad for around $80-90 when I was looking, but is nowhere close to the 9800 in terms of performance.

Which reviews are you reading? Because the ones I am seeing, the 4870 is hanging in the same space as the 9800GX2, both are in the 270 range. But the 9800 GT and 4850 are the ones hanging in the same performance ranges, also same price ranges.

I just want to make sure you did not read wrong and end up with something underperforming.

[Slack3r78]

But the 9800 GT and 4850 are the ones hanging in the same performance ranges, also same price ranges.
Except they're not. The 4850 is going for around $175 out of pocket and can be gotten down to around $140ish after rebates.

The 9800 GT is going for $120-130 out of pocket and around $100 after rebates.

Having an extra $50 floating in the nether for a few weeks and an extra $40 or so afterward isn't really what I call the same price bracket. The 4850 is a great card, but the 9800 GT is a phenomenal value for the money right now.

EDIT:

I just realized you might have misread 4670 as 4870. The 4670 is ATI's new sub-$100 midrange part. Puts up pretty decent numbers for a card in that class. But the 9800 GT is just so close in price, it's hard not to justify the huge leap in performance to be had.

It's quite a bit harder to do so between the 9800 GT and the 4850 because the jump in price doesn't really seem quite proportional to the jump in performance.

EDIT II:

To put it a little bit simpler -- I'd expect the 9800GT to remain usable considerable longer than the 4670. Between the 9800GT and the 4850, however, I see their useful lifespan as being about the same.

[KingGorilla]

Oh, yeah I missed it, I was not aware that those budget cards had made it onto the market yet. But hell, 100 for a 9800 GT is a helluva deal.