- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
First of all, we should say "thank you" sexy legs davis for putting together that excellent video guide post. I've read it 2-3 times and find that it's packed with good information.
Buying video adapters for PCs has always been a challenging task. I used to love the 3DFX voodoo cards and didn't bother with anything else. But they went out of business and left many of us without support. So I avoid being loyal to any one brand or another. It's good that there is healthy competition between two major players like Nvidia and ATI. The consumer win because the cards they produce are excellent. You just have to decide what you want and what you can afford. If you're new to this don't expect to buy a card today that will be adequate 4-5 years in the future. If you love games, especially the latest ones, spend a little more on video and enjoy yourself now or you'll end up frustrated (and broke later anyway). If you're a game enthusiast, then you may only get 2 years of happiness from your video card before requiring a faster replacement. How much you invest ($) will determine how long the magic last.
I never buy the latest, greatest, fastest graphics card when it's released. It's just too expensive. What I find is that the card that is one or two notches below is the best price-performance point. And if you learn to OC (overclock) the card and CPU you can have your cake and eat it too. I usually end up with the top card when ATI and Nvidia move on to their new generations and the old top card price drops like an anchor.
It's good to research the cards and see how they perform with actual users. Also pay attention to the number of pipelines the card has because it's a true indicator of performance potential. I prefer video cards with 8 or more pipelines. I like to research on sites like tomshardware.com and anandtech.com. Tomshardware have this excellent "VGA Charts" series that can help a buyer determine which card to buy. First you decide which games are important to you, then compare the cards in the charts. You can see how your card stacks up with others in the more popular, demanding games. Halo is a very demanding game, so if you want all that hi-res eye candy, the charts will tell you what card you need to buy.
Well, I hope this advice is helpful to some.
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