The Coolest Video cards for PC Gaming

There are a remarkable variety of graphics cards on the market aimed at gamers. While the very latest technology is always expensive, there are also solutions for those who don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend. These video cards were selected because they are good values in their class, and they are ordered roughly from fastest (most expensive) to slowest (most affordable). I can’t include every quality card, but I do update the list when I can, so your suggestions are welcome.

3) nVidia GeForce 7900 GTX

The GeForce 7900 is nVidia’s premium chipset for gamers, and has several improvements over the 7800. As well as better performance, it’s smaller, has fewer transistors, and generates less heat. Subsequently, it should cost less to manufacture cards using the 7900 than the 7800 in the long run. To be sure, the 7900 GTX is a force to be reckoned with and keeps up to the Radeon X1900 XTX on most benchmarks.

2) ATI Radeon X1900 XT

ATI’s X1900 cards, which so far come in GT, XT, XTX, and Crossfire versions, are at the top of ATI’s current product line for gamers. The performance is very similar to that of GeForce 7 cards. The XTX with 512 MB of memory and 48 shader units is the most powerful of the X1900 cards, followed by the 256 MB XT, which is at a particularly attractive price point right now

1) nVidia GeForce 7950 GX2

If hefty price tags aren’t a problem, the Geforce 7950 GX2 packs two 7900 GPUs onto a single card, giving you the performance of a dual card system. Although you won’t see a lot of benefit from this right now unless you’re running games at high resolutions (1600×1200 or greater), they do go nicely with a 24 inch monitor. For extreme overkill, you can have quad graphics processors by placing two GX2 cards in one system!