Graphic Card Upgrade Buying Advice

[bluedragon 0]

Hi, My graphics card is a bit old and I was hoping to upgrade it in a few days. My friend is going China so I was hoping if its better to buy from China or US ( where he has to go after that ) .. Since I think Most of the graphics cards are manufactered in China I THINK that they would be cheaper there .. Can someone guide me as to where it would be cheaper and by how much .. I am thinking of buying either an XFX GeForce GTX 260 or Radeon HD4870 And If someone can suggest me a better card .. its alwasy welcome but I am not expecting it to go beyond $150 since I am kind of tight on cash I am not planning to go for SLi since my board doesn't support it and I am expecting it to run the upcoming games like Splinter Cell:Conviction and Assassin Creed 2.. Thanks

[Alex Cicala 0]

Look into the POV GTS 250, its a very good card for a bargain price. It was benched ar doing Crysis [set max evrything + res] at around 35-40 frames.

[bluedragon 0]

Thanks for the reply .. But where Should I buy it from ?Any idea if its cheaper in USA or China ?

[rayzoredge 2]

I suggest you take a look at what they recommend at Tom's Hardware. It's a pretty good site to reference and research benchmarks for processors, graphics cards, and of course, the newest, latest, and greatest stuff. (The above link will throw you into the best graphics cards for the money @ ~$100+, reviewed during this month.)

If it's just your friend that's going, have him or her do you a favor and see if the graphics card you finally set your eyes on is even available there and how much it costs. The currency in China is the yuan, and Google says that 1 Chinese yuan is approximately $0.15 right now. Use Froogle to try to find the best deal on your graphics card for stateside (but check NewEgg, TigerDirect, eBay, and PriceWatch to double-check anyway in case Froogle doesn't catch a cheaper price) and compare the prices between the Chinese variant and the U.S. variant. (Don't forget to factor in shipping, unless you can convince your friend to fork over the cash to ship it for you.)

[alexthemans 0]

Thanks for the reply .. But where Should I buy it from ?
Any idea if its cheaper in USA or China ?

Where do you live, for example, USA?

Assume you live in USA and XFX GX260XAHBF Black Edition (NewEgg Price: $189.99 and NewEgg China is nearly the same). If you ask your friend to buy it from China, the product price may be cheaper than that in USA. I serached one of the most famous auction site in China, http://www.taobao.com/market/global/index_new.php, the prices vary from $143.35USD/980 RMB (in Guangdong Province) to about $336.28USD/2299 RMB (in Beijing, Shanghai).

However, I still recommend you buying cards from USA, as international postal service charge is much expensive than in-state postal service charge, not to mention delivery time.