Video Card Overview

For those of you that prefer to build your own computer you may find yourself in a quandary when it comes to deciding which video card to purchase. The following should help to overcome these predicaments and help you on your way to video card bliss!
First thing that I will state right of the bat: brand name doesn’t make a huge difference. I’m sure you’ve all heard of Creative, Guillemot and Elsa and believe that these are the best in the biz. But, how about smaller companies, such as Leadtek? Or inno3D? Well, these cards, under these names, are typically cheaper than those from the larger and more popular companies but still perform similarly, providing that they have the same chipsets. What are the available chipsets, you ask? Here is a run down:

Note: SDRAM - Single Data RAM -- fast video card memory

DDRAM - Double Data RAM -- faster video card memory

All other types of memory are slower.

Chipset manufacturer: nVIDIA

Current Chipsets: Geforce2 MX ($70), Geforce2 GTS ($140), Geforce2 Pro ($200), Geforce2 Ultra ($300), Geforce3 ($400).

nVIDIA has been making video cards for quite a few years now. They began with their RIVA 128 chip back in 1997 and then released the TNT, TNT2, TNT2 Ultra, Geforce with SDRAM, and Geforce with DDRAM. Recently the Geforce2 cards have been on the market and the third Geforce is being released in early May. The above list of Geforce cards are listed by speed, with the MX being the slowest and the Geforce3 being the speediest. Don’t be fooled by the MX’s inexpensive price, though, because it is pretty fast and is suitable for any business machine that may run a game of Quake III once in awhile. If you are a hard core gamer, and can afford it, go for one of the higher end Geforce2 cards. Just make sure the card you are getting is a Geforce2 and not one of the original Geforce cards!

Chipset manufacturer: ATI

Current Chipsets: Radeon 32MB VE ($75), Radeon 32MB LE ($75), Radeon 32MB SDRAM ($75), Radeon 32MB DDRAM ($160), Radeon 64MB ($185), Radeon All-in-Wonder ($200)

ATI has also been in the video card game for a while. They began with the Mach64 chipset in 1994, moved to the Rage I, Rage II, Rage Pro, Rage 128, Rage 128 Pro, and now the Radeon. The card I use is a Rage 128 and has served me well for the past two years. ATI’s main problem has been that their cards were never quite as fast as those from nVIDIA or 3Dfx. However, ATI’s Radeon, their latest incarnation, does an excellent job of holding its own against nVIDIA (see 3dfx’s snafu below). Its benchmarks have actually been pretty close to nVIDIA’s latest Geforce cards, albeit a bit slower. The LE version of the card does not contain Hyper-Z, which is a technology that improves the card’s speed. However, this version runs about the same price as the SDRAM version of the card. The VE version provides support for attaching two monitors to the computer. If you are need of this service than this is a good card to consider but like the LE version, it is not as fast as the regular SDRAM cards. The All-in-Wonder version of the Radeon card is pretty much a 32MB DDRAM card with a built in TV tuner and video capture card. These are nice features but if you aren’t going to use them, then the added cost of the card isn’t feasible.

Chipset maker: Matrox

Current Chipsets: Millenium G450 ($100), Marvel G450 eTV ($200)

This company has always tried to develop cards that are faster than its competitors but it never seems to make it. Their newest claim to fame is DualHead. It allows the user to project separate images on two separate monitors (or TV’s), which is similar to the ATI Radeon VE and the nVIDIA MX cards that have TwinView (which some of them do). If you are in the financial world and need to find information on stocks but need to also keep a full-screen document open, this card would greatly help you. The above cards also have 32MB of DDRAM, so they are fairly fast but don’t match up to the speeds of the Geforce2 or Radeon cards. The eTV model is similar to the All-in-Wonder Radeon since it has a TV tuner.

Chipset maker: 3dfx

Current Chipsets: Voodoo4 4500 ($70), Voodoo5 5500 ($130)

The names “3dfx” and “Voodoo” used to be synonymous with the very best in 3D acceleration. Their original Voodoo and Voodoo2 add-on cards were THE best 3D cards you could buy. Unfortunately, their newest cards have severely dropped in quality. Even though the Voodoo4 and Voodoo5 have 32MB and 64MB of RAM, respectively, they do not match up to the new generation of ATI and nVIDIA cards. Initially, the reason to buy a 3dfx card was that they supported the three major API’s of the 3D acceleration world (Direct3D, Open GL, and Glide; all other cards supported only the first two). However, there are very few games that still Glide as a source of acceleration so it is not necessary to buy a 3dfx card. In addition to these problems, nVIDIA has since bought out 3dfx so the above cards may be the last we see of the Voodoo name.

So, there you have the low down on the current video cards on today’s market. But, I’m sure your still wondering what to buy. Well, that all depends on your intended use.

For a computer that is going to be solely used for word processing, spreadsheets, Web surfing and E-mail, which is pretty much a total business machine, any of the above cards are just fine, so I’d go for whatever you can find that is cheapest. Even an occasional game will be very satisfied with an inexpensive nVIDIA MX or ATI Radeon card.

For gaming, it all depends on your budget. For the most part I would go for an nVIDIA card over the rest, as they seem to have produced the best results of all the cards in their respective price ranges.

Want to watch TV or a DVD on your PC? The All-in-Wonder cards have been around a while and perform well. ATI’s cards also do the best when it comes to DVD decoding.

One caveat, before I depart. Sometimes, to save money, motherboard manufacturers build the video card right into the motherboard. You may be thinking, “Great! Then I don’t have to spend $100 to get a separate one!” This is true but there are two problems with this: 1) the card is usually not very good and 2) whatever amount of memory this video card has is used up from the amount of RAM included with your computer. For instance, if you get a PC that has a built-in 32MB video card and your computer has 96MB of RAM, then the video card will be stealing 32MB of RAM from your 96 MB. Thus, you only have the use of 64MB of the 96MB. That will make a huge difference! If this computer is for little Johnny’s room so he can use the Internet and type reports, then fine. But, if you want this to be your main computer and you are planning on using it for any sort of gaming or other memory-intensive actions, then don’t skimp on this and buy a legitimate video card.

So with this information in hand, you are on your way to video card bliss!

Note: Prices are determined by www.pricewatch.com. They fluctuate every day so they may be lower by the time you read this.