"So.which graphics card should I buy?" After countless years-and countless e-mails-this question never, ever gets old. OK, maybe a little. Hey, we can't blame you for being confused. Technology jumps mean that every three months this magazine winds up declaring a new king of the graphical hill. You can't help but feel buyer's remorse after dropping $500-plus on a new, top-of-the-line card only to find out that it's old news by the time you've installed it. Those days of confusion are now over. Well, at least until the next generation of graphics cards comes out. Ready to make sense of 3D cards and become instant experts? Class is in session, kids.
Lesson 1:
No matter how many numbers, pixel pipelines, and quad-card solutions that manufacturers try to sell you, one inevitable truth persists: No one graphics card works for everyone.
Lesson 2:
As pretty as screenshots may look, no GPU (graphics processing unit.as if you didn't know) in the world will faithfully render photo-realistic scenes any time soon.
The Big Questions
Q: So, whatcha got under the hood?
A: Before we even begin this little adventure in upgrading, you need to know whether your computer sports an AGP (Advanced Graphics Port) or PCIe (PCI Express) graphics-card slot. Older machines that are still gameworthy are likely using AGP, while PCIe is the way of the foreseeable future. All the high-end graphics cards you crave use the later technology. Not sure which you have? Two quick ways to tell:
1) Right-click on the My Computer icon and select Properties. In the hardware tab, click the Device Manager button. Then, in the Display Adapters area, right-click on your graphics card. Selecting Properties tells you everything you need to know (it'll say, for example, "Location: PCI Slot 1").
2) Or you can just see for yourself in the comparison photos above. After all, you're gonna be getting your hands dirty soon enough. Forget the colors in these images; the easy way to spot the difference is to look at the connectors and end clips that lock the graphics cards into the slots.
Q: What's all this talk about shaders, and why should I care?
A: On the most basic level, shaders dictate what the surface of a 3D object looks like in a game. Yes, these handy little programs deal with everything from light diffusion and texture mapping to reflection, refraction, shadows, and opacity. And don't forget all those cool postprocessing effects like motion blurring and HDR lighting. In a game like Half-Life 2, most of the emphasis in detail lies on the surface of the object-not in the number of polygons that make up the model.
Hang on; here's where it gets a little bumpy. Microsoft's DirectX 9.0c, the 3D application program interface (API) in most current PC games, uses vertex shaders and pixel shaders. Vertex shaders alter geometry while pixel shaders determine a pixel's color value. Today's graphics cards are all DirectX 9.0c compatible.
What you aren't seeing yet: next-gen cards that take advantage of DirectX 10. When DX10 hits the scene-likely with the release of Windows Vista in 2007-with it comes the concept of geometry shaders. Without getting too deep into the technical side of the force, these shaders operate between the vertex and pixel shaders, streamlining procedures. Geometry shaders can output results directly to the memory and into the graphics pipeline without ever needing the CPU. This means more operations happening faster. Some of the first games slated to show off what DX10 can do include Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Halo 2, and possibly EA's Crysis.
Q: I'm always seeing graphics cards with more memory at different speeds. Why does that even matter?
With the availability of faster graphics memory (with modern GDDR3 clocking as high as 900MHz), manufacturers pile more RAM than ever onto their cards. Cards bristling with 512MB of memory are commonplace now, and ATI recently announced a card equipped with a staggering 1GB of memory. Granted, that new card is meant for workstations...but we can dream, right? Seriously, though-the era of 1GB graphics cards for gamers ain't far behind. As games make use of higher-resolution textures, 512MB cards will become more useful. In other words, for most games today (aside from a handful like F.E.A.R.), 512MB of memory constitutes just a little bit of overkill. On the other hand, if you're itching to ratchet up the antialiasing settings, the extra memory certainly can't hurt.
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Q: CrossFire? SLI? Should I even consider dropping big bucks on one of these dual-card graphics solutions?
A: You got a spare $1,100 lying around? The first thing you need to know: If you have a small LCD monitor (19 inches and under), don't waste your money on a dual-card setup. The monitor's low native-resolution settings won't take full advantage of even one high-end graphics card, let alone two. The next thing to keep in mind if you spring for two cards: You need the right motherboard to get the job done. You might wind up building a new PC from scratch.
Between ATI's CrossFire and Nvidia's SLI, which one's better? Both exhibit evenly matched speed on most games and synthetic tests. Nvidia pulled ahead a little, sure, but its GeForce 7900 GTX cards can't render some games with antialiasing and high dynamic range lighting at the same time. Just ask yourself which features you really need in your card.
Q: All right then, so which card should I buy?
A: You want the truth?! You can't handle the.oh, never mind. We don't have a simple answer for you. We could say, "Wait for Vista." With DX10, a completely new set of procedural processing will require a new kind of graphics card that you're probably going to want to buy> anyhow. Ah, but life's never that simple, eh? With that, it's testing time!
Take It to the Boards
Jason Cross' eyes are still uncrossing after his marathon lab session for ExtremeTech.com. He scrutinized 17 different graphics cards ranging from sub-$80 budget boards up through $550 fire-breathing, superclocked monsters. The result of this exercise: You really do get what you pay for, particularly if you play current-generation games like Call of Duty 2 or The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
Before we dive into the products, though, let's work through some scenarios you can use to figure out the best upgrade path. A lot depends on the games you play. Are you addicted to The Sims 2? You may not need one of those overclocked monstrosities-a midrange card works just fine. So let's run through the key decision points.
First, ask yourself: "What games do I play?"
It used to be simpler: Playing first-person shooters meant getting the beefiest graphics cards possible, while playing anything else meant getting away with lower-cost hardware. That's gotten a little more complex, as games like Battle for Middle-Earth II and Civilization IV up the graphical ante for strategy titles. Some modern racing games make heavy use of pixel and vertex shaders, too.
It turns out that the vast majority of games today tend to rely more on the CPU. Half-Life 2 provides a good example: Despite the game's gorgeous visuals, even moderate graphics cards can generate high framerates, but a modest CPU may result in lower performance. Some current-generation titles such as F.E.A.R., Call of Duty 2, and Oblivion hit your graphics card harder than Barry Bonds hits the steroids-especially if you start turning up the eye candy.
If your games require less-robust graphics, then you probably don't need that $550 overclocked behemoth. A midrange card costing about $200 will do just fine.
The other key piece of advice: Know your system. If you own an aging system that still has an AGP slot, your options become more limited.
Of course, sometimes you simply can't afford a pair of $550 cards. Dropping $1,100 on a pair of high-end graphics cards that then require a beefy CPU and a massive power supply may simply be too frivolous an expense for most of us. In that case, just bite the bullet and turn down some graphical detail options. If it's any consolation, some games still look pretty freakin' impressive on a $200 card if you bump a few key detail sliders down a notch or two.
Ultimately, you want to achieve that Zen of system balance-that state of Nirvana where the CPU and the graphics cards don't hobble each other. An SLI or CrossFire graphics setup running on a 2.66GHz Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 3000+ might not be an optimal balance, since the graphics system will often remain idle, waiting for the CPU to finish some task.
By the same token, you shouldn't be surprised if your game performance goes straight to the toilet when you combine a lower-end GeForce 7300 with a powerful Athlon 64 FX-60 CPU
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