How to: Choose the Right Videocard
By Ian Bell
February 21, 2008
If you have ever wondered about upgrading your system's videocard, we have a handy guide that walks you through what to look for, what the differences in price will get you, and what you should avoid.
Snip:
"In general, you get what you pay for when buying a videocard. If you are looking at two cards from the same manufacturer, and one costs more, it’s usually more powerful and able to run games at higher levels of quality and at higher resolutions. Comparing cards from different manufacturers can be confusing due to their different naming conventions, but even then the golden rule still usually applies. The only time this rule does not apply is at the very top of the videocard hierarchy, where cards are insanely expensive and only slightly faster than the next-cheapest card. For example, NVIDIA’s 8800 Ultra is only five-to-ten percent faster than the 8800 GTX, and yet it costs $250 USD more. Is that little performance boost worth the cash? For most people, the answer is “no.” Typically it’s the second or third least expensive card in a product line that hits the price-versus-performance sweet spot, such as the NVIDIA 8800 GT, which is $200 USD less expensive than the 8800 GTX but is only 5% slower in most benchmarks."
Read our videocard buying guide