Topic: burninated by ati radeon 9600 xt preorder

[vudu]

like (apparently) a lot of people out there, i preordered a ati radeon 9600 xt shortly after gamespy.com ran an article on them.  the news of a good card at a very reasonable price ($200) came at a great time for me since i was halfway through building a new computer.  after preordering the card, i checked ati.com every few days for news of a release date.  last week i noticed that they changed the status of the 9600 xt from 'preorder' to 'sold out'.  excellent, i thought--apparently the card's very popular, and i got mine in plenty of time.  (no doubt the free copy of half-life 2 increased preorders by quite a bit.)

last week, anxious about the card, i e-mailed someone in ati's customer service for a status update.  i was told that the card is on back order and they had no idea when more would be ready.

so what does this mean?  most likely either (a) the card was sold out when i preordered it over 4 weeks ago and ati didn't change its website to reflect the status until last week, or (b) the card wasn't sold out until last week, and ati hates me and decided to ship my card to someone else.

did anyone on this forum preorder the 9600 xt?  anyone get theirs?  if so, when did you preorder?  if it was after october 1, i think it's only fair that you send me your card and i'll send you mine when i get it.  okay?  no?  didn't think so.

so now i have a new p4 2.8ghz pc sitting on my living room floor with no video card in it.

i am officially burninated.  (thanks knowsnothing, for the great word.)

[Sirmorphix]

Burninated see this.

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As for the back order what this means is that ATI undoubtably was not aware of the demand the 9600 XT would generate and when they accepted your pre-order they probably thought that they could fill the order.  So most likely the card was actually sold out when you pre-ordered, but they were probably not aware of that at the time.  This happens a lot, especially with retailers.

Regardless, if you were going for bang for buck, the plain 9600 probably would've worked out just as well, especially for its performance to cash ratio.  Personally I'm leaning towards an All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro, but only for all of its extra gimmicky features.  Plus I can get it for 4 dollars more than the plain 9800 Pro, so I don't know why I wouldn't.

[vudu]

thanks for the info.  unfortunately, i don't play enough pc games to make the 9800 a worthwhile purchase.  i can't see paying $500 for a video card when i only play 3-4 pc games per year (mostly fps, because control tends to suck for those games on consoles).