Video:
Video
(1): Asus V-7700 Geforce 2 64MB AGP
Price: $337.22 (latest price
here)
In perhaps the most competitive industry, NVidia
continues its recent
domination of the video card scene with the GeForce 2. According to
just about every benchmark there the Geforce 2 is well above the
competition in terms of performance, and NVidia has pretty much the
best credibility when it comes to consistent driver updates. As the
Ultra cards and of course the Voodoo5 6000 aren't available yet, this
part is going to have to be filled with a plenty capable 64MB Geforce2
card. So who do we choose from among all the people making GF2 cards
out there? Well Asus seems like a good pick, no corporate turmoil to
worry about, a good solid track record in producing feature filled
cards. Really few cards stray from NVidia's reference design, but Asus
always manages to pack something extra into every video card it brings to
market.
We're going with a 64 Meg board here instead of a 32...
and at least
this upgrade is functional. Running the kind of horsepower this
machine has we're going to be only really running in high resolutions.
Since higher resolution gameplay is really the only area where the
extra 32 megs of memory gives you any benefit, it's justified in this
case as more than just a gratuitous expense.
Video
(2): 3dfx Voodoo5 5500 PCI 64MB
Price: $266.44 (latest price
here)
What? Another high performance video card? Ok, I'm not
nuts, and no I
don't think you should go swapping this and the Geforce2 in and out
depending on if you want some real FSAA action. The beauty of Windows
2000 is that it supports multiple monitors on multiple video
cards. Motherboard only have one AGP slot so we have to go for the next best
thing for our second video option and get the best PCI video card out
there which just happens to be the Voodoo5. The bonus here is that if
you're playing a game where you really want the visual quality of 4x FSAA, you
can always specify the Voodoo5 and play on the second
monitor, same with glide and games that run notoriously poorly on
NVidia cards (Unreal, Tribes, etc...) Basically this second video card
not only gives you the option of having dual monitors for all your 2D
non-gaming needs, but also allows you to experience the best of both
worlds when it comes to gaming. Now if only they had a Radeon PCI
version just for DVD playback on a 3rd monitor..... ok, so *that* would be
excessive.
Next page: Monitor
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