For $80 new (price will probably drop, as it looks like a cheap chip to make and sell).
It beats up on the aging 8800GS (confusingly called the 9600GSO now).
I like it, it means that entry level gamers now have a choice that doesn't involve nVidia. (the 3870 is still pretty expensive, but it looks like the prices are already dropping, it should be at about $70 to have a good price/performance ratio, of course used cards seem to hold value even when they are long redundant, possibly because people will foolishly spend $500 on a 7900GTX
, so they are still around $150 when $45-55 would be more appropriate considering their performance.)I am glad to see somebody shaking things up, nVidia is stuck with stupid monolithic chips and isn't scaling to the market. They seem to have a huge gap between the entry-level and actual price/performance chips(all based on 8800 tech no less). I would rather see them shoot for the mainstream as AMD has done. Either way you look at it this is a good thing, prices are going to tumble
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3405
If these drop to $50 and you don't have something comparable, I would suggest it for those on a tight budget.
I think the best part is a total system power draw of 139watts!! I would love to see this in pre-built systems and laptops under $1,000
