|
|
|
| Hot Stuff! Introduction | High Power, Low Price | Boost Your Memory-Now! | Store More! | What You See ... | A Cruise You Can Afford | More Printer, Less Money | Timing Is Everything |
To get the most bang for your buck with a graphics accelerator, don't buy immediately after its release. If you do, you'll pay top dollar, and you'll get early versions of the drivers. Wait until the product is out for a while; you'll get a price break and updated drivers to boot. But be sure to buy as much graphics accelerator as you can afford so you get the maximum use out of it-now and in the future. (We have not provided a pricing chart in this category because the feature sets of graphics cards vary too widely for comparison.)
Avoid 32-bit cards and those with only 1MB of memory. These just don't have what it takes for today's graphics-intensive applications. You may also want to hold off on that hot 3-D accelerator for now. This technology is so new that it's likely to go through numerous revisions before it settles in, and there's not much software around that can take full advantage of it. The games that come bundled with a new 3-D card will have been enhanced with 3-D effects, but they'll run with that card only. And you have to look hard for the 3-D effects to notice the difference. Wait for Direct 3D and a solid API.
Prices have remained relatively stable in this area; it's the features and performance that have changed. You'll pay a bit less for average graphics capability than you did five years ago, but you couldn't buy performance like this back then.
A good buy today, at about $200, is an S3 VIRGE-based board with 2MB of EDO memory. Hercules' Dynamite 128 offers full-motion video, true color, high-resolution graphics and MPEG options that would have cost $1,000 a year or two ago. Prices for this model range from $200 to $300.
Prices on 64-bit technology are dropping the fastest. In particular, cards with 1MB of memory are very low-priced. But don't be tempted; 2MB has become the entry-level standard. -Marc Spiwak
|
|
|