THG's Xmas 2002 Holiday Buyer's Guide

ASUS V8460 Ultra GeForce 4 Ti4600 Graphics Card

Making Themselves Heard: 11 GeForce4 Ti4400 and Ti4600 Cards

Although, it does not offer 8X AGP support, there are some good deals floating around on the Ti4600 cards at the moment.

The Ti4600 cards continue to be a very popular option right now as they have headed toward the mid range in the pricing since the intro of the Radeon 9700 Pro. The Ti4600 cards were almost $400 when they were first introduced, but now they can be had for as little as $250 if you shop around. Of course, the supply of Ti4600 cards is tight, as you might expect, because of the introduction of the Ti4800 cards, which feature AGP 8X support. If you are looking for a deal on a video card, this might be the one to go for. The bottom line, however, is that these cards were the king only a few short months ago, so they are not a bad buy at all.

Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1Multi-Purpose Sound Card

Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1 and Digifire 7.1
$49.99 US

The Hercules Fortissimo III provides a lot of punch for the low price or $49.99 or less and it is in most cases far better than the sound that is integrated into most motherboards.

The Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1 sound card is an excellent value that offers great sound at a low price. In most cases the sound quality and performance that the Fortissimo III offers it a lot better than what you get with the typical integrated sound that is in your motherboard. Another good low cost alternative to the Fortissimo III is the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz which can be purchased for about $10 to $15 less than the Fortissimo III.