Top 10 Graphics Boards for Gamers

The $370 Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS Pro remains at the top for a second consecutive month. Thanks to its NVidia GeForce2 Pro chip set, it performed nearly as well as more-expensive GeForce2 Ultra boards. For wallet-conscious gamers, ELSA's Gladiac MX--which performed on par with the rest of the MX boards on the chart but didn't match their software bundles--is new to the chart this month.

At press time, graphics boards vendors ELSA and Hercules had announced cards based on NVidia's new GeForce3 chip set (code-named NV-20). VisionTek, a company that makes many of the boards found in new PCs, also announced a GeForce3-based product. Hercules says its 3D Prophet III will cost $529, and ELSA plans to field its Gladiac 920 for $549. Both cards will sport 64MB of DDR memory and a 460-MHz memory clock speed.

On paper, the long-awaited NVidia GeForce3 chip set appears impressive. NVidia claims its programmable graphics processor executes 800 billion operations per second and performs two to seven times as fast as the current top-of-the-line GeForce2 Ultra chip. The GeForce3 chip is also the first to provide both hardware and software support for Microsoft's DirectX 8 application programming interface.

In tandem with an NVidia GeForce3 chip, DirectX 8 is supposed to provide numerous advances over DirectX 7, most notably programmable vertex and pixel shading. With this feature, game developers can manipulate colors, lighting, and textures in games, and they can add miniscule details such as skin blemishes, golf ball dimples, and water ripples. Programmable vertex and pixel shading, according to NVidia, will bring an as-yet-unseen level of realism to games without sacrificing frame-rate performance. A few DirectX 8 games will be released along with the first GeForce3-based boards, but the bulk of the games are still in development.

Meanwhile, if you've been saving for a sizzling GeForce2 Ultra-based card, the good news is that you'll be getting some change back because the price of those boards is expected to drop by at least $100 once the GeForce3-based boards are available. ELSA has already dropped the price of its Gladiac Ultra from $549 to $399 this month. The company's GeForce3-based card was expected to ship on March 9, but ELSA is holding shipment until NVidia fine-tunes its drivers. We'll be testing boards with GeForce3 chips soon to find out whether they look as good in games as they do on paper.

Beyond the Top 10

None of the recently tested boards listed below ranked high enough to secure a spot in our current Top 10. Where possible, we link to reviews of these models, either from PC World magazine's Top 10 Graphics Boardsor from a previous month's version of PCWorld.com's Top 10 Graphics Boards for Gamers.

AGP Boards

• Asus AGP V7700 Pure 32
  
  
• ATI Radeon 32MB SDR
  
  
• ELSA Gladiac GeForce2 GTS
  
  
• Matrox Millennium G450
  
  
• MSI MS StarForce 816
  
  
• Videologic Vivid