Top 5 Graphics Boards

MSI's FX5900 XT-VTD128 earned high marks for its image quality and feature set, and its low price is hard to beat.

Graphics boards sporting the new and faster PCI Express interface may be appearing in PCs by the time you read this. But if you want to upgrade a fairly recent system--and aren't interested in buying a new motherboard to take advantage of PCI Express--check out our latest chart of AGP 8X contenders. Four of the five models are new; they not only showed plenty of speed in our gaming tests, but they have loads of nongaming features, as well.

For gamers with money to burn, Asus's Radeon 9800 XT and BFG Technologies' Asylum GeForce FX 5950 Ultra hit high frame rates in our new gaming tests using the games Halo, Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, Unreal Tournament 2004, and Comanche 4. In antialiasing image-quality tests using Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, Unreal Tournament 2004, and Comanche 4, ATI-based cards impressed our panel of judges and earned higher scores than the NVidia-based cards.

For gamers who can't afford the high-end models, the top card, MSI's FX5900 XT-VTD128, offers good gaming performance for the money. It also bundles full versions of the games Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project; Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon; and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. All of the cards we reviewed support the latest DirectX 9 API.

But these new boards have plenty of features to make nongamers drool, too. ATI's All-In-Wonder 9600 XT, number three on the chart, offers a remote control, the ability to record and play back live TV and FM radio, dual-display support, and a host of other niceties at a relatively low price of $250. And, with ATI's optional VGA-to-YPrPb adapter, you can use this card to drive an HDTV-ready TV set. Asus's Radeon 9800 XT card includes a security application that protects your PC by detecting motion, capturing video, and sending out e-mail warnings.

And finally, all of the graphics boards we reviewed for this chart proved easy to install on our new Athlon 64 FX-51-based Alienware test systems.