Elsa GLADIAC 64MB ULTRA AGP DDR GEFORCE 2 GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR

WHAT'S HOT: ELSA's Gladiac Ultra is still the least-expensive GeForce2 Ultra board on our chart, at $299. It closely matched the Creative Labs Annihilator 2 Ultra's frame rates in our tests. The Gladiac Ultra also ships with Revelator 3D glasses for the ultimate in three-dimensional gaming. It earned a score of Excellent in our speed tests.

WHAT'S NOT: This ELSA card didn't fare as well in our image-quality tests. Colors appeared too bright in Quake III, and some graphics displayed darkly in Test Drive 6 and Unreal Tournament, leading to a lower overall image-quality grade than that achieved by the other cards on our Top 10 chart this month.

WHAT ELSE: ELSA throws in a discount shopping spree, letting Gladiac Ultra owners select up to three game titles--such as Messiah, MDK2, and Evolva--for only $20 total. The company provides a generous six-year warranty and toll-free tech support for 9 hours each weekday. ELSA's optional TV-in/TV-out module is now available for $39 from the Shop ELSA Web site.

BEST USE: With ELSA's $100 price drop, this is the most affordable Ultra board on our chart. The $20 software offer is great for anyone who's new to PC gaming.

SUMMARY

ELSA Gladiac Ultra 4X AGP, NVidia GeForce2 Ultra chip, 64MB of DDR SDRAM, 350-MHz RAMDAC; 3D glasses; S-Video-out; DVD playback software; select up to three game titles for $20 total. $299 800/272-3572 www.elsa.com