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 By: Sam Parker Designed By: Katie Bush Published: 12/02/2000 A lot has happened this year in the world of graphics cards. Some familiar names have left the market, even as remaining card makers have pushed performance to new heights and introduced a range of new features that vie for consumers' attention. To help you single out the card that offers the features and performance right for you, we've rounded up ten of the most representative graphics cards on the market this holiday season. Most of the new graphics cards out now are based on just a few reference designs. Nvidia, which designs and produces graphics chips for third-party card manufacturers, quickly moved to capitalize on the popularity of its GeForce256 with the GeForce2. This generation of chips actually comes in two distinct varieties: the GeForce2 GTS, which puts a premium on 3D performance, and the GeForce2 MX, designed for solid GeForce256-level speed at a lower price. A souped-up version of the GeForce2 GTS, the GeForce2 GTS Ultra, arrived most recently. The other major forces in the market currently produce both their own chips and graphics boards. Previously focused on mainstream graphics more than gaming performance, ATI introduced the Radeon this summer to compete directly with Nvidia at the high end, while Radeon-based cards still offer the multimedia capabilities ATI is best known for. 3dfx has pushed its Voodoo products into the new millennium with the dual-chip Voodoo5 5500 as well as the cheaper Voodoo4 4500, which is less suited to serious gaming. These chips power the graphics cards that are best suited to running today's 3D games. However, cards with Nvidia chips are often labeled under a confusing array of names, and the third-party board makers - we evaluate cards from Creative, Hercules, ELSA, and Leadtek here - use slightly different board configurations and software to differentiate their products. We've also looked at the lesser-known ST Kyro, which is based on the PowerVR chip that succeeds the one that drives the Dreamcast's graphics, because it uses a very different and more efficient architecture that some of the larger companies are considering for the future.
Not only has technology changed in the last year, but so have prices. While most add-in graphics cards used to cost between $100 and $250, this year many high-end cards had initial price tags above $300. The fastest cards available, based on the GeForce2 Ultra, launched at an incredible $500. These higher costs dramatically hammer home how graphics cards, equipped with chips about as complex as today's CPUs and massive amounts of high-grade memory, have become an essential partner to the main processor and system components in gaming PCs. Yet there are still options for the cost-conscious gamer - four of the cards here cost less than $150.
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