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Guys this is an article to just pass on some good buying and maybe a bit of unknown information in the graphics card market at the moment. With all of the performance and value for money promises being made by the big players in this market, very few of which have even come close to the figures advertised especially for the amount of money you are told you need to spend to get that big leap in quality and of course the most important gamer factor "frame rate" I thought you all might want to see some interesting facts.

Two and half years ago I purchased a Leadtek Geforce4 Ti4600 myvivo 4xagp card I paid $1080 for the privilege and at the time many people around me thought I was mad for parting with this much cash, I however had done my homework and had been saving furiously to partake of some amazing increases in how Counterstrike and Operation Flashpoint would run.
I was not disappointed as stated in many reviews I was blessed with a way over doubled 3dmark (increased from my Leadtek Geforce3) and all of my games being at that stage directx8 and 8.1 they looked great and the drooling and late nights of high frame rate gaming began.

After a year or so I knew Directx 9 was coming and with it a whole new era of high pc stressing jaw dropping graphics technologies, it was time to keep up with the play and again prepare to depart with a large sum of cash unfortunately this time the articles would dictate that all the hype on the new FX series Nvidia cards and not long after that the new ATI Radeon 9000 thru 9700 were not presenting the "Bang for Buck" they had been spammed as having and the 200% plus increases I would have gladly given my sweated for dollars over to purchase.

The ATI created Radeon 9500pro and 9700pro were the closest to tempting me to buy but at only around a 35 - 50% real-time (being not a tweaked off the scale benchmark) result I was still not convinced and my Geforce4 being what I consider to be the messiah graphics card of its time was more than still providing me with all the eye candy in the new games I required.

Unfortunately a little over 2 years after the purchase of my trusty Ti4600 as with all items in the computer industry these days there comes a time when the new technologies are being released and you find the need especially in the gaming industry to take the leap, rise to that next level and keep up with the now hardware surpassing software industry.
Unlike previous times where you could buy nearly any graphics card and run almost any game at a reasonable rate the times have changed my friends with the release and soon releases of several games you will have to have a good graphics card or don't bother and that is clearly stated in the specs on the games now too, no beating around the bush and saying it will run at low detail buy away, its you need these specs or else I'm afraid people.
Some of the titles I refer to are as follows, Battlefield Vietnam, UT2004, Farcry and V8 Supercars 2 to name a few and later on down the track you better be preparing for Stalker: Oblivion Lost and of course Half-life 2 and Doom3. All these titles will run on that trusty old banger but is it worth it; you will miss out on the directx 9 effects and a crap load of frame rate that these games are being designed to dazzle you with.
So back to the graphics card timeline it was time again to buy and this time the rules and the amount of money you need to spend have changed dramatically.

The good news is gone are the days where you need to spend a thousand buckaroonies to get the right card now due to the complexities of the new games none of the graphics cards avail on the market are going to run them at high detail and 100 + frames because no matter what huge figures and astounding numbers are thrown at you the game tech has way surpassed any piece of graphics hardware on the market today. DirectX 9 is an absolute Graphics card smashing technology and at best you can expect even from the high end cards to just run it, no matter what it will chug badly when complex scenes cross your screen.

Don't be sucked in people by all the big promises being put your way by the conglomerates, what you need to do if you feel the time has come to trade up is spend half way that's right people the best "Bang for your Buck" is to look around the $275 - $600, $275 to $350 giving DirectX 9 capabilities and an average frame rate well playable with a small window of lastability remembering this spending window really is to just get you into the new technologies and bring you up to the times.

The cards holding the best figures currently are the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro or XT though with a worldwide shortage of XT GPU's I am afraid getting hold of one of these cards may be near to impossible and no doubt the prices will rise when they re-surface so grab a pro version, not a lot of difference in performance if you pick up a higher spec'd card with good ram timings. NVIDIA's offerings are a little slim in this area and the only card to wet the average appetite would be the FX 5700 series with ddr 2 ram and finally a large enough pipeline to carry the information it should, it is a reasonable card and with NVIDIA's constant updating of their Forceware drivers you should continue to notice good performance increases. In this price range however the Radeon definitely has more bite and the vibrant colours produced by the ATI cards are sure to please.

The high side of this price range is where I decided to look as top performance is definitely high on my list of wants when shelling for a new graphics card. And with a lot of research and testing it was evident that spending that extra money was going to net at least a 100% - 150% increase not the 35% - 50% mentioned before that the lower priced cards show. In this range there is only one offering recommended and that is the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro or 9800 Pro (Extreme) these cards are fantastic they offer near to the $1000 cards performance at a huge discount infact if you hunt around the net and look at many reviews in a lot of the higher end games the 9800Pro surpassed the top end Nvidia offerings of the FX 5950 etc thus making only perfect sense that these are the cards to buy.


The GeXcube 9800 Pro Extreme was my choice bought from Starlyte Computers at an awesome price, it runs 128MB 2.8ns BGA DDR 256bits (400/700Mhz) with TV/DVI, as you can see great ram timings and almost 9800 XT GPU and FSB timings but here's the great part with the help of a piece of overclocking software called Radlinker it does run at the XT specs in fact it passed them!!!! (9800 XT 412/730) and my 9800proExtreme 423/758. All in all that's the bottom line the top cards avail at the moment are a waste of money and with Nvidia and ATI already disclosing figures and exaggerations on their next generation of cards you will need to do your homework on whether buying now is a wise choice or wait another 3 to 6 months and see if these companies can actually deliver what they advertise, from the looks of what we here at GHQ have seen its not looking like anything will change, promises of Half-life 2 being run 7 to 8 times faster than a current top end card ????? Yes we have seen these promises before. You choose lower mid range, upper mid range or next generation, I waited for the next generation of card from my TI4600 and it has taken 3 revisions and an extra year and a half than I planned to wait to actually see a card well worth my cash, I would say this fact is not going to change but only time will tell, there has to be a huge graphics card technology jump soon to bring this technology in line with the games.

Here is probably the best set of comparison charts on the net showing different games and how the two graphics giant's offerings fare and also a couple of cards from some new players trying to break into the market.

Toms Hardware Graphics Comparison Charts 3 This is the best source of juicy gossip and info on upcoming graphics cards and technologies, you will see many stories here on the new cards and see what we have been saying about the extra large figures and promises being quoted, have a read.

The Inquirer
Nvidia.com
ATI.com

Finally if you are buying a new graphics card at the moment here is a short list of the most crucial questions you should be asking yourself. These simple checks could save you a lot of money or disappointment.

• How long do you want this new card to last (be realistic we all know this technology changes like some peoples underwear).
  
• What sort of increases do you want to see over your previous card (lets be honest as I said above if the new card is not going to give you a good increase why dish the dollars, hold off and buy one that does).
• Are there any new cards due in the next 3 - 6 months and are they going to be substantially better (no point in buying a new card only to find it is obsolete in 3 months).
• What sort of backup and warranties does the new card have (we know graphics hardware gets pushed pretty hard and you might want to hold on to this new card you spent a fortune on for a while).
• Am I truly in need of the new card or am I just trying to keep up with the Jones ( you wouldn't believe how many people I know have bought graphics cards just because someone they knew got one, make sure its out of necessity, suits your purpose and do your own homework).
• And finally how much do I want to spend (now rule of thumb on this one is whatever you set your budget at you can almost guarantee you will need to spend about 50 - 100 dollars more to get the results you really want, its like buying a house or a car hey we all like to save some money but don't base your buying decision on this fact or you may be disappointed).