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Value Cards (upto $100)
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Recommended Cards
Best buy: Radeon 9550
Other good cards in this price category: Radeon 8500LE/Radeon 9100, Radeon 9000 PRO, Radeon 9200
Radeon 9550
Pros- Cheap, full DX9 support, very good image quality
Cons- not so fast
Radeon 9200
Pros- Cheap, DX8.1 support, good image quality
Cons- No DX9 support, not so fast
Cards to Avoid
SiS Xabre 600/400
Pros- Cheap
Cons- Speed comes at the cost of heavy quality loss, very slow when quality on par with ATI/nVidia cards, poor driver support
GeForce4 MX420/MX440SE (64-bit memory)/4000
Pros- Cheap
Cons- No DX8 support, VERY slow due to 64 bit memory
GeForce4 MX440/MX440-8x/MX460
Pros- Cheap
Cons- No DX8 support, basically turbo charged GeForce2 MX with Video processing engine. Slow in DX8 games
GeForce FX5200 (non-Ultra)
Pros- DX9 support, cheap
Cons- Very slow, buy this card if you want to play DX9 games at slideshow speed, most of the 64 MB versions come with 64 bit memory which can make it as bad as GeForce4 MX420
Radeon 9200SE
Pros- DX8.1 support, cheap
Cons- VERY slow due to 64 bit memoy bus, not fast enough for many DX8 games
Radeon 9600SE/9550SE
Pros- DX9 support
Cons- Slow, not powerful enough for DX9 games
Special notes for budget graphics card buyers:
Avoid 128(if possible)/256 MB versions and save money. All of these budget cards aren't powerful enough to make use of 128 MB memory. Moreover, many 128 Radeon 8500LE/9100 cards are slower than the 64 MB version, because they come with slower memory.
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Lower Midrange Cards ($100 to $200)
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Recommended Cards
Best buy: Radeon 9600 PRO/XT, GeForce FX5900 SE/XT
Other good cards in this price category: Radeon 9600XT, GeForce FX5700 Ultra, GeForceFX 5700 (non-Ultra)
Radeon 9600 Pro/Radeon 9600XT
Pros- DX9 support, excellent DX8 and DX9 performance, very good AA/AF peformance
Cons- None
GeForce FX5900 SE/XT
Pros- DX9 support, best DX8 performance in this category and quite good DX9 performance, good AA/AF peformance
Cons- Not so good price/performance ratio as Radeon 9600 PRO, equal to R9600 PRO/XT in DX9 games
GeForce FX5700 Ultra
Pros- DX9 support, excellent DX8 performance and quite good DX9 performance, good AA/AF peformance
Cons- Not so good price/performance as Radeon 9600 PRO, somewhat slower than R9600 PRO/XT in DX9 games
GeForce FX5700 (non-Ultra)
Pros- DX9 support, excellent DX8 performance and quite good DX9 performance, good AA/AF peformance
Cons- Slower than Radeon 9600 PRO and more expensive, sufferers somewhat in DX9 games
Cards to Avoid
GeForce FX5600 (non-Ultra)/XT
Pros- DX9 support
Cons- Gets wasted by Radeons. Not good value for money
GeForce FX5600 Ultra rev1.0/2.0
Pros- DX9 support, fairly good DX8 performance (rev2.0)
Cons- Poor DX9 perforamance, Radeon 9600 Pro and faster cards are much better for both DX8 and DX9. Not good value for money
Radeon 9600 (non-Pro)
Pros- DX9 support, good DX8 and DX9 performance, Good AA/AF performance
Cons- Not so fast, poor price/performance ratio compared to Radeon 9600 Pro
Radeon 9800SE
Pros- DX9 support
Cons- 128 bit memory versions are slower than Radeon 9600 Pro, rare 256 bit memory versions are very hard to find which perform on par with Radeon 9600 Pro. Both versions are poor value for money
Special notes for midrange graphics card buyers:
Avoid 256 MB versions and save money. 256 MB VRAM is useless with these cards and card manufacturers often use inferior memory in 256 MB cards
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