Top 10 Power PCs

GeForce3 Jumps Into Desktops

Graphics boards with NVidia's latest chip set, the GeForce3, have shown up on our Top 10 Graphics Boards chart (where ELSA's Gladiac 920 takes the third spot this month) and in some Top 10 Power PCs systems. These boards are costly, however; the ELSA goes for $399. Will you see a return on your investment?

Two new Xi Computer systems, one powered by Intel's 1.7-GHz Pentium 4 chip and the other by AMD's 1.4-GHz Athlon chip, deal graphics through Leadtek's WinFast GeForce3 graphics card with 64MB of DDR memory. Though the Xis draw much of their speed from their CPUs, the graphics boards contribute to overall performance. Both systems' scores were among the highest we've seen.

The GeForce3 continues the graphics card's role of taking on many of the memory-intensive tasks previously relegated to the CPU. It handles memory bandwidth bottlenecks by performing many calculations entirely on the graphics board (and thereby avoids transferring data between the CPU and the graphics board). For gamers, the chip set delivers higher frame rates, which mean smoother game play and more realistic-looking characters and backgrounds. Businesses may want the faster graphics processing unit inside the GeForce3--and its 57 million transistors--to handle CAD and other high-end graphics programs effectively.

But if you plan to use your new machine primarily for number crunching, word processing, and Web browsing, consider opting for a board that uses NVidia's budget GeForce2 MX chip. You won't notice any performance difference on these tasks, and the MX can shave nearly $300 off the price of a system.