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Top 5 Graphics Boards

Four new boards make our Top 5 chart under an updated test suite.

Alexandra Krasne

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GeForce FX 5900XT Video Card PCW Rating: PCW Rating: PCW Rating:

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1. MSI GeForce FX 5900XT Video Card

NVidia GeForce FX 5900 XT Ultra chip , 128MB of DDR SDRAM, WinDVD Creator Plus, MSI Media Center Deluxe II, WinDVD 5.1 Channel, RestoreIT! Pro, MSI 3D Desktop, 7 in 1 Games Collection, Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, DVI-out, S-Video-in, S-Video-out, composite-in, composite-out, dual-display support, 350-MHz RAMDAC, Price when ranked: $200

Bottom Line: Pretty good performance, desirable features such as DirectX 9 support, and a nice price give this board the top spot on the chart.

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Radeon 9800XT Video Card PCW Rating: PCW Rating: PCW Rating:

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2. Asus Radeon 9800XT Video Card

ATI Radeon 9800 XT chip, 256MB of DDR SDRAM, Battle Engine Aquila,GunMetal, Power Director ME Pro, Photo Express SE 4.0, Medi@Show SE 2.0, VideoSecurity, DVI-out, S-Video-in, S-Video-out, composite-in, composite-out, dual-display support, 400-MHz RAMDAC, Price when ranked: $437

Bottom Line: Impressive image quality, features, and performance make this pricey Radeon 9800 XT-based card a great choice for serious gamers.

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All-in-Wonder 9600 XT Video Card PCW Rating: PCW Rating: PCW Rating:

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3. ATI All-in-Wonder 9600 XT Video Card

ATI Radeon 9600 XT chip, 128MB of DDR SDRAM, Mediator 7 Standard, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Pinnacle Studio ATI Version, voucher for Half Life 2 game, DVI-out, S-Video-in, S-Video-out, composite-in, composite-out, TV tuner, audio-in, audio-out, dual-display support, remote control, FM tuner, 400-MHz RAMDAC, Price when ranked: $250

Bottom Line: Midrange card earned high marks for image quality and offers plenty of features; it lagged in the speed portion of our gaming tests, however.

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Radeon 9800 Pro PCW Rating: PCW Rating: PCW Rating:

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4. Crucial Radeon 9800 Pro

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro chip, 128MB of DDR SDRAM, CyberLink PowerDVD XP 4.0, DVI-out, S-Video-out, dual-display support, , dual 400-MHz RAMDACs, Price when ranked: $335

Bottom Line: Despite having half the RAM and a price $102 lower than that of the number-two Asus Radeon 9800 XT, this board rivals it in image quality and speed.

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Asylum GeForce FX 5950 Ultra Video Card PCW Rating: PCW Rating: PCW Rating:

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5. BFG Technologies Asylum GeForce FX 5950 Ultra Video Card

NVidia GeForce FX 5950 Ultra chip, 256MB of DDR SDRAM, Windows Blinds XP skins, DVI-out, S-Video-out, composite-out, dual display support, 400-MHz RAMDAC, Price when ranked: $500

Bottom Line: Big, high-powered card takes up an extra slot and doesn't match some rivals in image quality, but it came out on top in our speed performance tests.

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We use two PCs provided by Alienware, each with a 2.2-GHz Athlon 64 FX-51 CPU, an Asus SK8V motherboard, 1GB of DDR SDRAM, two 36.7GB Western Digital Raptor hard drives in a SATA striped RAID configuration, a Viewsonic PF790 monitor, and Windows XP Home. For performance testing we use the Halo, Splinter Cell, and Wolfenstein Enemy Territory games, the Unreal Tournament 2004 demo, and the Comanche 4 Benchmark demo. We measure frame rates at 1024 by 768 and 1600 by 1200 resolutions, both using 32-bit color. We also measure frame rates and perform a set of image quality tests with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering enabled at 1024 by 768 resolution at 32-bit color using Wolfenstein Enemy Territory and the Unreal Tournament 2004 and Comanche 4 Benchmark demos. Overall scores based on price (20 percent), performance (42.5 percent), features (27.5 percent), and service and support (10 percent).

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