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Which video card to buy?Jan 05 '01 Write an essay on this topic.Deciding on a video card for your computer is a important step. (duh) While I have my biases towards certain cards which you will see here, I am open minded. If you read my other epinion on building your computer from scratch I go a little into video cards. The first thing to decide on when buying a card is what you will use it for. This should be based on the highest demand application you will run. For most people out there this will be games while for others 3-D rendering and animation. The thing with video cards is that the performance you get out of one largely depends on the other parts of your system. A $400 Hercules Prophet II GTS 64MB (which I have) is useless on a Pentium 2 233 Mhz System with 32 MB of RAM. I mean the VIDEO card has 64 Megs of RAM by itself. The reason for this is simple. The video card processes the information only as fast as the processor gives it information. If you put a high end video card in a low end system you will most probably NOT notice ANY difference and will most probably not be happy. The truth is learning on how to balance the whole system is the key. I currently only buy 2 brands of video cards. The first is 3dfx Voodoo cards and Hercules/Guillemot GeForce and GeForce2 Chipset cards. As of this writing NVidia will be taking over 3dfx. For systems that can handle a good video card 800Mhz+, and 128MB+ of RAM, need a fast video card. If you put a slow video card in there it will look like your system is slow, this is due to the system waiting for the video card to process information before sending it more. People that buy a high-end system with a built in video chipset into the motherboard will notice this. NEVER BUY A BUILT IN CHIPSET. EVER!!! Always buy an Video card. I recommend the new GeForce2 cards. I have the Hercules Prophet GTS II 64MB card and it is very nice, although it should be at a $400 price tag. This card will last a while without being outdated too soon. I have ran this card on my system (1Ghz Athlon with 256MB RAM) with Unreal running at 1024x768 resolution at over 60 FPS (Frames per second). This more than DOUBLE DVD FPS of 30. This card is very, VERY powerful. Compatibility side I have ran games under Direct3D, and openGL without any problems. For people that do not need a high-end video card and will not be playing the newest games. I suggest a Voodoo3 3000 card. I know, I know, this is not a new card by any means and while the $99 price tag seems a bit high for a old card I think it is worth it. This card will play any game out there without a problem you might see FPS get low at higher resolutions. If you need a better card than the Voodoo3 but not as pricey as the GeForce2 cards, go with a Voodoo4 or Voodoo5 card. These are all great cards and will work without a problem. Above you see my biases. I have bought other cards from other companies like Creative and ATI. I heard the Creative Annihilator pro was a good card but I do not have one, so I cannot say anything more about it. Before buying a card, just go read some reviews and do some research. If you know you need a video card (which is why you are buying one) at least take the time to find a good one.  |
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