I'm not sure if this post will be delated or not, but I wrote this for my dad who wants to upgrade. I told him I would E-mail him this, my accumulated knowledge of what I know and what to look for when buying a GPU. Please feel free to add anything That I did not take in to consideration when buying a Video-card. Hopfully this will become a sticky on my other forum that I post at regularly, and help people out when they decide to upgrade themselves. So here goes... Aspects of a graphics card one must know in order to be a well informed buyer. All these specs will not be listed on the outside of a video-card's box, so ask a sales person or do research on the card you have in mind on the net. 1. Interface:... PCI, AGP, or PCI Express 2. Core And memory operating frequency:... mhz~ghz 3. Number of pixel pipe-lines:... 4, 8, 16 (the more pipes a card has, the more information it can process and render) 4. Memory interface:... 64bit, 128bit, 256bit (not to be confused with capacity) this refers to the direct conection between the video-card's core and on board ram (the higher the bits the faster the data can transfer). 5. Memory technology:... DDR, DDR II, GDDR3 6. DirectX generation:... Dx7, Dx8, Dx9 7. Transform and lighting capabilities:... Lighting and render effects modern games use to make environments more real 8. BandWidth:... measured in GB per second (11.5GB/s ~ 31GB/s) 9. Power requirements... most modern day Video-cards consume a great deal of power, so make sure your Power Supply Unit is at least 350watts with 18amps on he +12v rail. If your not sure check the specs on the side of your unit. 10. Memory capacity:... measured in MB: 32mb, 64mb, 128mb, 256mb, 512mb (most 128mb cards preform better then thir 256mb counterpart (brother) of the same version of the card (only difference being memory capacity), reason being is most game programmers do not code their game engine to utilize 256mb for textures As of this writing there are relatively few game that make use of 256mb of video ram, such as Doom3, Quake4, Battle-Field2, FaCry, F.E.A.R,CAll of Duty2. Although with some of those games the resolution must be 1280x1024 or higher and the Anti-Aliasing pumped up in order to start using 256mb of memory. I wont even mention 512mb of vRam, because it will be a a year or two before games will use that amount, let alone need that much. This is purely a marketing ploy for the uninformed (with the generally concept that more is better, which is true for system RAM to a certain degree). Only reason I see buying a graphics card with that much RAM (512mb) would be for C.A.D work, or a game designer, but there are already specific Cards made just for that purpose also to future proof ones system, but like i said, by that time when a game actually needs it, your card will be already obsolete. Al the above factors will determine the Frames Per Second a Graphics Card will produced in any given game. It is unknown how many FPS the human eye can actually process, but I do know Movies are encoded at 23~29 Frames per second. In games, its generally the same idea, the higher the frame rate the fluid the action is. You wanna shot for 35FPS or higher at any given resolution, if you get choppiness or lag, then that an indication that your FPS might be dropping below 30FPS. --prescott, 2.8ghz @ 3.6ghz --intel i865-pe chipset --1gig 512x2 in dual config --PNY 128mb 6800 16x1,5vp

I noticed a few typos... How about mentioning the relationship between CPU & GPU? ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP2

thanks, thats how they lern me in shcool... "relationship between CPU & GPU", I have a link somewhere that goes into detail about that, I'll see if I can find it. --prescott, 2.8ghz @ 3.6ghz --intel i865-pe chipset --1gig 512x2 in dual config --PNY 128mb 6800 16x1,5vp

"As of this writing there are relatively few game that make use of 256mb of video ram, such as Doom3, Quake4, Battle-Field2, FaCry, F.E.A.R,CAll of Duty2. Although with some of those games the resolution must be 1280x1024 or higher and the Anti-Aliasing pumped up in order to start using 256mb of memory." You are contradicting yourself here. You say 256MB is not necessary then you list several games (some of the most popular in my opinion) that will use that amount of RAM, but only at high settings. Isn't that what buying a high-end card is all about. Also, about half of those games you mentioned provide the "engines" that many games will be built on! Six months ago I would agree more with that statement, but I think now is the time to start thinking about 256MB. i wouldn't want to buy a 128 card today only to find out that a game I want requires 128MB. Case in point BF2. I had upgraded to a GeForce5700 just prior to BF2 coming out and I found that my card is the minimum needed to play the game. Michael J

I think you've made it too verbose for starters. All the stuff about what the eye can see has nothing really to do with going and buying the card. Your buying guide should be this: "Buy the best card your can afford. and mention a few Nvidias and a few Ati's"

excellent points indeed, MJ and smartypants. My mind is still stuck a few mouths in the past (when I last updated, and did research corncerning graphics cards). I failed to mention that 256mb of Vram almost serves no purpose at all if its core and memory operating frequency's are sub-par and not able to process much of that data. Its like having a PIII with two gigs of RAM, it would make more sence to have a P4 with just a gig of ram instead. For the casual, recreational gamer. Who does not need High-end, High-Def game play (1280x1024 4AA, 8AAF or higher), 128mb should be adequate for some time to come. Matter of fact Thats the setting I play most Of my games at and the run very smooth, and I the games that I mentioned in the my first post. I'll post more info when I get home. --prescott, 2.8ghz @ 3.6ghz --Abit is7-e, i865-pe chipset --1gig 512x2 in dual config --PNY 128mb 6800 16x1,5vp