NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 Price Dropping to $499?!

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, July 03, 2008, 01:00 PM EDT

Over the last couple of days, there have been some rumblings around the web that NVIDIA is planning to drop the price of their recently launched GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 280 cards in response to AMD's potent, and more affordable, Radeon HD 4800 series. The actual numbers quoted have varied, but today we heard some news directly from multiple NVIDIA board partners that pricing on the GeForce GTX 280 may actually be dropping to as low as $499--a significant drop from the $649 launch price. Unfortunately, we were unable to confirm a price for the GTX 260, but we suspect it will hover somewhere around the $299 - $339 price points to better compete with the Radeon HD 4870.

Upon hearing the MSRP for the GTX 280 could drop to $499 from one prominent board partner, we called others and, while not all would confirm the actual number, some said that it "may be a little higher, or potentially even a little lower" (than $499), but that something was definitely in the works. We'll keep you posted if we find out anything more concrete. In the mean time, you might want to hold off for another week or two, if you have an itchy trigger finger for that GeForce GTX 280 you've been coveting. It could pay handsomely to have a bit more patience.

Tags: Nvidia, GeForce, GTX, GeForce GTX, GeForce GTX 280, Price, ping, Ice, Price Drop, force, GT, Pi, id, PIN

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com