Money experiment: A little research yields a cheaper video card
Guys,
Long time no see on the money experiment eh? Well, the money experiment is still kicking and screaming just that I haven’t been able to post updates as much I’d have liked to. We have been really busy campaigning for LSP lately.
Last year, I had built a desktop for myself. I got some of the best components out there and assembled a high-end quad-core desktop for my home-office. I shall post some pix soon. It was based on Jeff Atwood and Scott Hanselman’s desktop rigs. It is an awesome setup! However, after just about a year, my 24 inch monitor gave up. It was out of warranty by one week and Westinghouse did not entertain my request for a courtesy service (a rant post is coming your way pretty soon). Another thing that had never worked from day one was the NVIDIA 8600GTS video card that I had so excitedly added to the mix. I tried everything I could possibly try to fix it but to no avail. So finally I decided I was going to get a new card. However, I wanted to make sure that it was the card and not the motherboard that was faulty.
I went to Frys and got a 9400GT (512MB @ 550MHz). The damn thing worked like a charm on the very first attempt. I was thoroughly impressed with its performance even though it has a lower clock speed than the 8600GTS (550 Vs 700). But again I’m not a gamer so you’re asking the wrong person when it comes to video cards! By the way, this post is about the moolah that I saved on this card rather than my geek skills’ show off 
I got the card for $86.59 with taxes etc. A couple of weeks later I stumbled upon the same 9400GT but with 1GB memory on Buy.com that was selling for $65.10 shipping included. I promptly ordered the card and it arrived within 2 days. Yesterday, I went back to Frys, returned the card and said thank you very much. Just now I found that the card I bought on Buy.com has a $15 cashback as well!.
Total savings : $21.49 + $15 = $36.49. Sweet!