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uying a new graphics card may

seem like a simple matter at first.

After all, both Internet shops and

local retail stores carry a plethora

of graphics cards in every performance

and price category. This large variety of

cards, however, makes it hard to select the

one that is ideal for you. A multitude of

factors need to be considered in the selec-

tion process, to ensure that the choice you

make will keep you happy over as long a

period of time as possible.

This article covers all of the criteria

involved in selecting and buying the graph-

ics card that is right for you. How impor-

tant each factor is will depend on your

personal preferences and the way you

intend to use the card. For example, some

people will require a video-in line, and for

them this will be a make-or-break feature;

others will not care about this particular

capability. To help you define your

requirements, we will also give a short

overview of the technologies used in

graphics cards of the past and present.

We’ve broken this buyer’s guide up into

six large sections that cover all of the

important factors. Obviously, there is no

perfect way to prioritize selection criteria,

because preferences and needs differ for

each individual. The order that we present

here is only one possibility among many,

and is meant more as a guideline to help

you find your own personal ranking of cri-

teria. Remember also that it’s sometimes

difficult to draw a line between these

issues, so there will be some overlap in cer-

tain areas.

The THG Graphics

Card Buyer’s Guide has

been written to be a

guideline for the

purchase of a new

graphics card. It aids

beginners in selecting

the right model with

the right feature set,

and explains the

newest technologies

and features.

#1: Intended Use

#2: Technology

#3: Performance &

Image Quality

#4: Budget

#5: Manufacturer &

Feature Set

#6: The Purchase

THG Graphics Card

Buyers Guide

Summary of content (23 pages)

PAGE 1
THG Graphics Card Buyers Guide The THG Graphics Card Buyer’s Guide has been written to be a guideline for the purchase of a new graphics card. It aids beginners in selecting the right model with the right feature set, and explains the newest technologies and features. #1: Intended Use #2: Technology #3: Performance & Image Quality #4: Budget #5: Manufacturer & Feature Set #6: The Purchase uying a new graphics card may seem like a simple matter at first.
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#1: Intended Use A Short Overview o matter what the intended use of your PC, be it games, office work, photo and video editing or anything else, you’re going to need a graphics card. However, the importance of the card’s performance depends greatly on the nature of the application! These days, the most important differentiating factors are video and 3D performance and quality. The first step in determining your ideal graphics card is to take stock of the primary applications for which you use your PC.
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THG Graphics Card Buyers Guide ularly.We’ll talk about this some more later on in this guide. For now, we’d just like to mention that while most DirectX 8 compliant cards will be sufficient for current games, they won’t do as well in the most recent and soon-to-come hit games, such as Doom III, Stalker and Half-Life 2. If you’re looking to replace your motherboard as well as your graphics cards, integrated graphics solutions may be an option for you.
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a lot out of the engine, but the in-game world is very static; dynamic lighting is not possible, for example. Another very popular DX7 game is Counter-Strike. Games such as Quake 3 (OpenGL), Unreal, and even comparatively recent games such as Battlefield 1942 belong to this generation. Almost all effects in these games are realized through simple textures. Aside from transformation and lighting (T&L), these cards are not programmable.
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THG Graphics Card Buyers Guide added. SM 3.0 is a completely new and very recent addition, which is supported starting with DirectX 9.0c. Currently, only NVIDIA’s GeForce 6xxx line of graphics processors can make use of SM 3.0.
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ATI and NVIDIA support Linux with special drivers. Linux drivers can be found on ATI’s and NVIDIA’s download pages. Video Playback Video playback and Media Player visualizations can be accelerated by graphics cards, taking load off the CPU. As we mentioned near the beginning of the art icle, video can be played back on practically any graphics card, as long as the correct codec is installed.
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THG Graphics Card Buyers Guide gaming resolution.The most popular higher resolutions are 1280x1024 and 1600x1200. In the case of classical CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors, the resolution can be selected freely, as long as it doesn’t exceed the maximum possible physical resolution supported by the screen.Things are more complicated when TFT (thin film transistor, aka flat screen or LCD) monitors are used, since these have fixed resolutions.
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ance of different current and previous-generation graphics cards in the Tom’s Hardware VGA Charts: CPU The system CPU has quite a bit of influence on the graphics card’s performance. Even though modern graphics processors no longer need any CPU time for their calculations, the data they process has to be prepared by the CPU and then transferred to the card. Additionally, the CPU also must take care of handling computer player AI, physics calculations and sound, all at the same time.
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THG Graphics Card Buyers Guide Image Quality Image quality is a topic that would easily merit its own article, if not a book in its own right.What I mean here is the quality of the rendered 3D scene as it appears on the player’s screen.This whole discussion was originally caused by the tricks and tweaks that graphics card makers have begun to build into their drivers.
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or budget line, the mid-priced or mainstream products, and finally, the higher-end enthusiast cards. Again, within each of these there are two versions offering different performance levels -- one is the standard version, while the other runs at higher clock speeds. ATI denotes these faster cards by the addition of a “Pro” or “XT” to the card name, while NVIDIA’s nomenclature uses the “GT” and “Ultra” suffixes. Low-cost products are often tagged as SE or LE parts.
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THG Graphics Card Buyers Guide ket and what specifications they use.The low-cost sector, especially, is flooded with a multitude of different configurations for the same basic chip. A good starting place to get an overview is Gigabyte’s product page (http://tw.gigabyte.com/ VGA/Products/Products_Comparison Sheet_List.htm). Older Radeon Models Radeon 9200 The RV 280 (Radeon 9200), like its predecessor the RV 250 (Radeon 9000), is based on the D i rectX 8.1 design of the Radeon 8500 (R 200).
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Entry-Level Price Range Bus Lowest Price Model Memory Memory Bus Shader Model Pixel Pipes <$99 AGP $35 $45 $46 $55 $56 $60 $63 $64 $65 $70 $79 $80 $80 $80 $92 $95 $75 $77 XGI Volari V3 XGI Volari V3 NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 ATI Radeon 9550 SE ATI Radeon 9600 SE/LE Matrox Millennium G550 ATI Radeon 9550 ATI Radeon 9600 SE/LE NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 ATI Radeon 9550 NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 ATI Radeon 9600 NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 LE ATI
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THG Graphics Card Buyers Guide Enthusiast Price Range Bus Lowest Price Model Memory Memory Bus Shader Model Pixel Pipes $300-$399 AGP $303 $350 $369 $370 $380 ATI Radeon 9800XT NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra ATI Radeon X800 Pro 256MB 256MB 256MB 256MB 256MB 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 2 3 2 2 2 8 16 8 8 12 PCIe $400-$499 AGP PCIe $465 ATI Radeon X800 XT 256MB 256-bit 2 16 >$500 AGP $525 $550 $680 $560 NVIDIA GeForce 68
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clock speed, the smaller X800 Pro features only 12 pixel pipes. Basically, the architecture is an evolution of the Radeon 9600 XT, but with a great number of improvements added as well as extra features. These cards are available as AGP products, and, in some cases, PCI Express parts as well. Versions: Radeon X800 Pro - 12PP - 256MB - 256-bit 475/900 MHz Radeon X800 XT - 16PP - 256MB - 256-bit 500/1000 MHz Radeon X800 XT PE - 16PP - 256MB - 256bit - 520/1120 MHz Article: http://graphics.tomshardware.
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With the R360, aka Radeon 9800 XT, ATI once more extended the 9800 product line at the high end. Compared to the Radeon 9800 Pro, the XT ran at even higher clock speeds, and ATI also optimized the architecture. Radeon 9800 XT cards are only available with 256MB of video memory. Beware of the Radeon 9800 SE, however. Unlike the rest of the 9800 family, this chip only features four active pixel pipelines and is therefore closer to a Radeon 9600.
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THG Graphics Card Buyers Guide GeForce FX 5900 Only a few months after the introduction of the previous top model, the 0.13µ GeForce FX 5800 (NV30), NVIDIA replaced the heavily criticized card (loud cooling solution, great heat dissipation, too low memory bandwidth) with the FX 5900 (NV35). In addition to re-designing the reference cooling solution so it is much quieter, NVIDIA also decided to drop the very hot DDR II memory on this card, instead widening the memory bus to 256 bits.
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Versions: GeForce PCX 5300 - 128MB - 64-bit 250/332 MHz GeForce PCX 5700 - 128MB - 128-bit 425/500 MHz GeForce PCX 5900 - 128MB - 256-bit 350/550 MHz GeForce 6200 Meant to be an affordable entry-level card, the GeForce 6200 rounds out the NV4x line at the bottom. At the very recent introduction of this PCI Express line of cards, NVIDIA used modified GeForce 6600 processors with some features disabled.
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#5 Manufacturer & Feature Set nce you have found a model that suits you, the time has come to choose the right cardmaker. As we mentioned earlier, NVIDIA, S3 and XGI don’t sell cards themselves, choosing instead to focus their attention exclusively on the design and production of their graphics processors. While ATI sells cards, their scope of operation is limited to Canada and the USA ("Built by ATI"). ATI-based cards produced by other companies usually say “Powered by ATI”.
PAGE 19
THG Graphics Card Buyers Guide is experiencing something of a revival with the help of NVIDIA.The new interface allows for several x16 PEG (PCI Express for Graphics) slots on one board.The success of NVIDIA’s SLI technology will depend mostly on the pricing and the availability of motherboards with the appropriate support. So far, SLI capability has been announced for PCI Express versions of the GeForce 6800 Ultra, 6800 GT and 6600 GT cards.You can read up on SLI here: http://graphics.tomshardware.
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components, it’s better to play it safe, bite the bullet and buy a brawnier PSU. Also, it should be noted that a good 350 watt power supply can deliver much more stable voltages than a cheap 450 watt model.The specifications of the PSU, such as the amperage at a certain voltage, can be of great help in making an educated buying decision. Such information can usually be found on the manufacturer’s website. If the manufacturer doesn’t publish any information, it’s usually safer to choose a different model.
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THG Graphics Card Buyers Guide Monitor Connectivity Almost every graphics card today features connectors for two monitors. Usually, cards will come with one DVI-I connector for a digital monitor and one standard VGA connector for CRTs. Adapters that ship with the card also allow for a second analog monitor to be used instead of a digital one. So, typically, the following combinations are possible: 1x VGA, 1x DVI, 2x VGA or 1x DVI & 1x VGA.
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material, the brunt of the burden is still borne by the CPU! Most cards with video-in & out connect to video sources using breakout boxes or dongles. Cameras or video recorders can also be connected. Video-out in HDTV quality is a new and hot topic.While most new graphics chips support this feature, the appropriate RGB cable is (still) usually absent from the bundle. If this is an important feature for you, be sure to check the cards’ feature and accessory table.
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THG Graphics Card Buyers Guide Current Drivers: clock speeds not to be found any w h e re, a reference to the slow 64-bit memory is also absent. Instead, the spec sheet only gushes about the memory size of 128MB - which has practically no beneficial impact on the performance of a card in this category. If you already have all of the information you need about your dream card, you can search for the best prices online by using search engines such as Bizrate (http://tomshardware.bizrate.