Graphics Cards for Every Budget

If you've been using your PC solely for the purpose of getting work done, you're missing out on a whole new world of technology. Let's be realistic—the gaming industry is driving many of today's computer upgrades and advancements. Do you really need a 1.67GHz CPU to run Microsoft Office? Probably not, but that 1.67GHz AMD Athlon, coupled with a few sticks of Double Data Rate (DDR) RAM, makes for some blisteringly fast Quake III gaming.

When it comes to hardware, the graphics market paves the way for the most exciting emerging technologies. Because most graphics developers work on a 6-month product cycle, they can introduce new features faster than even Intel or AMD can roll out new CPUs. In fact, today's graphics cards are classified as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), based on the sheer size of the die and the chip capabilities. At the top of the graphics food chain, GPUs boast more transistors than high-end Intel CPUs do and are every bit as essential to a PC's gaming performance.

If you currently use a 3dfx Voodoo3-based or NVIDIA TNT2-based graphics card, you might want to consider an upgrade. These older cards are fine if you're playing games such as Diablo, Civilization III, and Age of Empires II, but you're probably stuck viewing low resolutions and 16-bit color depths. Moreover, when you start dealing with 3-D graphics, today's games demand more from your graphics card than older cards can deliver.

Don't be fooled into thinking that these cards are one-trick ponies just because they offer outstanding 3-D performance. As you'll see, some of these boards can handle DVD decoding and TV output (TV-out). And, for those of you living in High-Definition Television (HDTV)-capable areas who don't want to shell out the bucks for an HDTV decoder, some of these cards can decode and display HDTV signals in their native resolutions. Table 1 provides a comparison of the cards' features.

Whether you're looking for a card to take advantage of the latest and greatest graphics advances or considering a more budget-minded purchase, having an understanding of the technology behind these cards is helpful. Let's focus on the two primary considerations when you upgrade your graphics card: performance and features. With this knowledge in hand, we'll look at three high-end graphics cards that deliver 3-D graphics faster than any console available today and a couple of budget cards for those who don't want to break the bank to upgrade to the latest 3-D accelerators.

High-End Graphics
NVIDIA's GeForce4 GPU is the current reigning champ for powering high-end graphics cards. On a technical level, the GeForce4 is an evolutionary leap over the XGPU in Microsoft's Xbox console and represents the first genuine leap in 3-D technology since 3dfx first introduced the Voodoo chipset. And, as with every new GPU that NVIDIA introduces, the usual suspects (such as Leadtek Research, Creative Technology, and ASUSTek Computer) are back and slugging it out for a piece of your upgrade budget.

The GeForce4 GPU boasts 63 million transistors-20 percent more than Intel's Pentium 4 CPU. Thanks to a new, thinner fabrication process, the GeForce4 can hit higher clock speeds, consume less power, and generate less heat. The GeForce4 GPU also fully supports every DirectX 8.0 feature in hardware.

Like the GeForce, GeForce2, and GeForce3 before it, the GeForce4 features a full Transform and Lighting (T&L) engine. This feature lets games off-load geometric processing from the CPU to the GPU, leaving your Pentium 4 free to handle other gaming functions. The benefits of the GeForce4 GPU are evident in its three primary features: Lightspeed Memory Architecture, High Resolution Anti-Aliasing (HRAA), and DirectX 8.0 support. For a closer look at these features, see the sidebar "Inside the GeForce4."

Although the GeForce4 is the very definition of high-end 3-D technology, NVIDIA offers the core GPU at various price points that target a wide market. At the highest end of the spectrum, the GeForce4 Ti 4600 targets hard-core gamers who crave uncompromising performance above all else. For those who want a balance between price and performance, the GeForce4 Ti 4400 sells for roughly $100 less than the GeForce4 Ti 4600, but with a loss of about 100MHz of memory clock speed.

Still, both cards are pricey. You get a lot-but depending on your needs, these features might not be worth the amount of money you'll have to pay. If you can get past the sticker shock, a GeForce4-equipped card gives you a lot of bang for the buck and will make your buying decision future-proof.

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