Building the Ultimate Gaming PC

With the huge complexity and intensity of graphics in today's games, it is impossible to have smooth playback without a good video card. While you can get by with a Radeon 9000 or GeForce4 MX card, these are simply cheaper alternatives to the real performers. With top notch video cards, you have a few choices, so let's give them a look:

1. ATI Radeon
   
   ATI's Radeon line has been offering great gaming video cards for years. If you're looking for performance at all costs, the Radeon 9800 with 256mb memory is the leader of the line, but be warned: it isn't cheap! If you'd like to save a little money, you could grab a Radeon 9500 at less than half the price, and get the same features at a reduced performance rate. For many months, these ATI cards were able to boast their position as the only cards with full DirectX 9 support. While this doesn't mean much today, it will mean much more as more games use DirectX 9 features. In the end, DirectX 9 support means better performance with the same hardware, as game designers build visual effects onto DirectX 9 functions that are hard coded right on your video card. In short, if you are a serious gamer, if you don't have DirectX 9 support, then you should plan on needing to buy another video card in about a year! While ATI used to be the only manufacturer who could claim DirectX 9 support, we now see this same support from their main competitor - nVidia.
   
   
2. nVidia GeForce
   
   Although the performance of ATI cards has had them beat for the most of last year, if only slightly at times, nVidia has always had the advantage of a more compatible and more stable card. This is mostly due to their drivers - ATI is notorious for buggy drivers. I tend to lean toward nVidia myself, because performance is worth nothing if your machine keeps crashing! For the last 10 months, the GeForce4 line has been a great line, providing innovation and great performance improvements to the industry. If you're looking to get a great card for a modest price, then the GeForce4 Ti 4200 or 4800 would be a great pick. In the last months, the new GeForceFX line has been their new flagship series. This is the new line that also boasts DirectX 9 support. Unfortunately, while I have always been a supporter of nVidia, even I have to say that the initial GeForceFX line was disappointing. The first cards to come out where huge and loud. The fans were so big that they took up two slots, and they were ridiculously loud with their oversized cooling setup. Thankfully, the manufacturers have given attention to the noise issue, and it has been significantly improved, but these cards still take up two slots, which makes them impossible to use in mini PCs. On top of these issues, we just didn't see impressive performance from them. Even the fastest GeForceFX 5800 could not beat out ATI's Radeon 9800. Then on top of that, ATI released the Radeon 9800 with 256mb memory, and further strengthened their standing. Much of this performance problem was based on a memory bottleneck, which nVidia was wise to give immediate attention. With the GeForceFX 5900, the memory bus is widened, giving the card the performance edge it needed to be competitive with ATI. So, now it is neck and neck again (as always), but the GeForceFX 5900 Ultra is the clear leader.
   

In the benchmarks to the right, you'll see the performance of each card in Unreal Tournament, in 1600x1200 resolution at 32bit color, with 2x FSAA. The benchmarked performance of each card highly depends on the test system specifications, and these display settings, but in the end, our choice for the Ultimate Gaming PC is clear - the GeForceFX 5900 with 256mb memory. It just doesn't get any faster!