1900XT price difference

[irishgrizzly]

On the euro Apple store the price of a Radeon 1900XT is €410 ($578), but I've seen it for $250 elsewhere online. Why is the price difference so huge? Are Apple price gouging because they've made it so you have to get there card to work in OSX? or has apples card got better drivers or something?

 

[erickkoch]

Apple sells the same card but it uses Apple drivers. Some users buy the cheaper PC version but then they have to flash the ROM or something to get them to work on a Mac.

You can find the instructions here.

Just be warned, if not done exactly right you can make your card unusable.

 

[statikcat]

Can you buy this x1900 anywhere new for pc? I can't find it anywhere. The price for the Mac version is way too high. I think I will either flash a pc version or when the new Mac video cards come out a legit Mac x1900 should go way down in price.

How much better is the x1900 over the stock Nvidia card in the Mac Pro for games like Command and Conquer, Warcraft, Bioshock, etc? I imagine it is probably twice as effecient/fast?

 

[Sun Baked]

The stock card is just a low power card (aka, sub 35W card) made to work in all 4 slots, or for running 4 of the cards at once.

The X1900 will make a difference, especially if you want to run games. And not really the choice some would make for that either.

And don't expect the price of the old card to go down, when Apple makes the switch. The card will be gone from the AppleStore rather quickly.

So you'd need to buy used, and quite a few of the Mac versions of the card on eBay will likely just be flashed PC versions.

 

[statikcat]

Yeah I figured when new cards come out there will be a ton on ebay and they may go down to 150$ used. I guess I may just try and flash a PC version..As long as its X1900 XT 512mb PCIe I guess it should be ok.

 

[Videographer]

So what's the latest on potential new card releases? October? ... November? ......... 2010?

Is ebay the only place for the PC X1900 XT anymore? Thanks.

 

[statikcat]

Ya I was wondering that too.. it appears not big stores online sell the card anymore.

 

[Wild-Bill]

Is ebay the only place for the PC X1900 XT anymore? Thanks.

Yes. The reason you can't find them anymore is because ATI stopped making them a long time ago. They have a contract with Foxconn to make the cards for them.

Nevertheless, no one in their right mind should pay Apple $400.00+ for an outdated piece of hardware like that. That price is insulting, considering one can purchase an 8800GTS 640 meg for about $320.00. Shame on you Apple.

eBay would be your best bet to find one.

 

[Videographer]

eBay would be your best bet to find one.

In that case, what would be a "good" price to pay for a lightly used card be? There's the ideal world where one would say "given that this card is X years old and you can get a better one for the cost of Y, then you should pay Z for this one." But we live in an Apple world where 2+2=400 and ideal world prices are thrown out the window when it comes to video cards.

But if a logical "good" value could be placed on a flashable PC X1900 card, what would you say it is? $100? $150? Whatever you'll pay because you have no choice?