Buying a Video Card
By: Aaron Guhl
With Windows Vista and DirectX 10 now out in the market, gamers will be seeking to buy new compatible video cards in the next year or so to take advantage of their new features. But, there are tons of different models and brands that it can be a daunting task to find the right video card for yourself. It really all comes down to what you are expecting to do with your computer. You don't want to go out and spend a lot of money for a high-end gaming card if you aren't going to take advantage of its full potential. At the same time you don't want to waste money on a cheap video card if you want to play games like Crysis.
The current generation of video cards have a native API of DirectX 10. The top video cards in this format for nVidia are the 8 series and 9 series. They have no issues running games made for DirectX 10 and Vista and are fully compatible. But for gamers who are looking for lower-end video cards that are only looking to play DirectX 9.0c games, then video cards of the last generation, such as the GeForce 7 series, will suit them well. They are also priced low and are very affordable.
With the current generation of DX10 cards come the nVidia 8 series. The current benchmark for these video cards are the GeForce 8800 GTX and similiar versions of factory overclocked models. These cards can run anywhere up to around 400 dollars. However, you definitely get what you pay for here. These cards will last you a while and can play just about any game on the market at high settings without a stutter.
Then there is SLI, which is short for Scalable Link Interface. It combines two video cards in the same computer to provide even greater video processing. Using two video cards in one computer is a sure fire way to get even better performance. However, this method can definitely be costly. To do it, you will need two of the exact same video cards. With a high-end video card costing around 400-500 dollars, a high-end SLI configuration can run you around 1000 dollars.
Regardless of what type of video card you will decide to buy, you can be sure that there will be a wide variety to choose from as well a large selection of games to play on them.