Upgrade Guide

Sure, a new processor or extra RAM can speed up your PC's handling of productivity applications, but to take full advantage of today's graphics-intensive Windows apps and the latest generation of hot 3D action games, a new graphics card can do wonders. The good news is that as graphics cards have become

Faster and more powerful, prices have continued to fall. Today, a $100 to $150 graphics card will run rings around a similarly priced card from last year.

Replacing a PC's graphics controller is one of the most frequent upgrades computer owners undertake, and one of the easiest. Major card makers include such vendors as ATI, Diamond, Hercules, Intergraph, Matrox, Real 3D, and STB. For more details about specific boards, see PC World Online's Top 400.

If you decide to tackle this project, begin by finding out whether your PC has a PCI or AGP slot. Older machines are likely to have a PCI slot, but newer machines, especially Pentium II­based systems, tend to have a single Accelerated Graphics Port slot, which delivers slightly better graphics performance. Note that some computers with AGP graphics lack an AGP slot. Instead, they have an AGP graphics controller chip mounted directly on the motherboard; if your PC has such an integrated graphics chip, you'll have to disable that chip and upgrade your PC's graphics adapter with a PCI card.

The decision about which card to buy also depends on what you intend to do with your system. Standard business applications (including graphics apps such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe Photoshop) use only 2D graphics, whereas games require high-performance 3D. All of today's cards handle both 2D and 3D, but some are better than others at each task. For example, the Real 3D StarFighter, designed mainly for games, provides excellent 3D performance but only average performance on 2D applications. Other boards compromise in both categories to deliver a happy medium, and still others are optimized for both. For example, the PC World Test Center rates the Matrox Millennium G200 card (the graphics board we used in our step-by-step presentation below) as an excellent performer in both 2D and 3D applications.

The amount of memory that comes with a graphics card is no longer a major issue. With few exceptions, most boards these days include at least 8MB of RAM--more than enough to display True Color (16.8 million colors) at resolutions up to 1024 by 768 and do a decent job keeping up with the performance needs of most games. But if you're into the latest games that feature heavy-duty 3D graphics, consider the newer cards that have 12MB or 16MB of RAM, such as the STB Velocity 4400. With 3D games, more memory permits greater realism.

Many cards also offer extras such as a TV tuner, a DVD decoder, or a port for connecting your PC to a television. Choose your features based on the applications you'll use.

Finally, to take advantage of your new card's highest-resolution graphics modes, consider buying a new monitor.

The following steps detail the steps you should follow to upgrade your graphics card.