Top 10 Graphics Boards for Gamers

This month the crown goes to the $499 Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 Ultra. With its 64MB of DDR SDRAM and a robust GeForce2 Ultra chip, not to mention outstanding image quality and excellent speed in our tests, the Annihilator 2 Ultra came in second overall on our previous charts. It's a worthy successor to last month's number one, the Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS Pro, which is no longer being shipped to stores.

Citing so-so profit margins in a volatile industry, Creative representatives say the company will de-emphasize the graphics card side of its business to focus efforts on digital audio. While Creative hasn't announced plans to leave the graphics boards business, the company hasn't built a new card in several months and won't be building a GeForce3-based card. Its current top-of-the-line boards, the Annhilator 2 Ultra and Annihilator 2--numbers one and ten on this month's chart--are still available, albeit in somewhat short supply.

For the first time, the $99 MSI MS-StarForce 818 GeForce2 MX makes the chart, placing ninth. The second-place Hercules 3D Prophet II MX is the only other card on the chart to match that low $99 price tag.

NVidia's Spring Line

NVidia recently announced its new spring lineup of video products, along with some price drops on its GeForce2 and GeForce3 product line. In early March, the company launched two new versions of the budget MX chip, the 200 and the 400. The GeForce2 MX 200 design has a 175-MHz core clock, a 166-MHz memory clock, and 32MB of SDR SDRAM; the suggested retail price for boards using the chip will be under $100. The GeForce2 MX 400 sports a 200-MHz core clock, a 200-MHz memory clock, and 64MB of SDR SDRAM. It offers TwinView dual-monitor support, and boards based on it will have a suggested price of about $129. For comparison, the original MX design features 32MB of SDR SDRAM, a 175-MHz core clock, and a 183-MHz memory clock.

NVidia plans to keep the original MX in place as long as there is demand from board manufacturers, although some manufacturers are planning to sell out their stock of the original MX products and then start making boards with the new MX 200 and 400 chip sets. New MX boards have arrived at our lab; look for test results in next month's Top 10 Graphics Boards for Gamers.

Even before most vendors have begun to ship powerful GeForce3-based boards, NVidia has lowered the suggested retail price for boards based on its chips, from about $550 to $399. The company also reduced the suggested prices for GeForce2 Pro boards: Expect to find Pro-based boards--with a 200-MHz core clock, a 200-MHz memory clock, and 64MB of DDR SDRAM--for about $229, reduced from about $350. No price drops have been announced for GeForce2 Ultra or GeForce2 GTS boards. NVidia is quick to point out that it's up to individual vendors (AOpen, Asus, ELSA, Gigabyte, and Hercules, to name a few) to set prices for their versions of those cards.

Beyond the Top 10

We also tested the $190 MSI MS-StarForce 815 Pro this month. Its speed scores nearly matched those of the Ultras, but its image quality score of Satisfactory in Unreal Tournament and its meager software bundle kept it from placing on the chart.

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

• ATI Radeon 32MB SDR and Radeon VE
  
  
• Asus AGP V7700 Pure 32
  
  
• ELSA Gladiac GeForce2 GTS
  
  
• Matrox Marvel G450 ETV and Millennium G450
  
  
• MSI MS-StarForce 815 Pro and MS-StarForce 816
  
  
• Videologic Vivid