Editors' note (1/16/03): Recent reports online indicate that there may be problems with some of Gainward's GeForce4 Ti 4200-based cards. Though Gainward hasn't issued an official statement, a representative from Gainward confirmed that a batch of boards had faulty capacitors. PC World is investigating the matter.

WHAT'S HOT: Attractively priced at $199, the Ultra/650XP Golden Sample is the cheapest NVidia GeForce4 Ti-based card that we've tested to date..

It fared well in our speed tests, beating out all but the more powerful GeForce4 4400- and 4600-based cards. In most cases, this 4200-based card wasn't more than 10 frames per second behind the more expensive models.

WHAT'S NOT: Although the call is toll-free, phone support is limited to 8 hours per weekday.

WHAT ELSE: The Ultra/650XP Golden Sample comes with a healthy selection of features, including composite-in and -out; S-Video-in and -out; a copy of the digital audio capture program WinCoder; the video editing program WinProducer; Serious Sam First Encounter game; and Gainward's own ExperTool overclocking utility, which lets you ratchet up the speed of the memory and graphics processor.

To test image quality, a three-person panel watched demos of our test applications and observed each card's ability to render complex textures and to display colors and contrast. The panel saw little difference in image quality between the high-priced boards the budget models.

UPSHOT: Gainward's Ultra/650XP Golden Sample is a performance graphics card that doesn't cost you an arm and a leg.

SUMMARY

Gainward Ultra/650XP Golden Sample NVidia GeForce4 Ti 4200 chip, 128MB of DDR SDRAM, 350-MHz RAMDAC, DVI-out, S-Video-in and -out, composite-in and -out; color-calibration utility, overclocking software, software DVD player, Serious Sam First Encounter game, InterVideo WinProducer and WinCoder. $199 800/539-2273 www.gainward.com