Best Graphics Card For PC Gaming

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Best Graphics Card For PC Gaming Posted: 19 Nov 2009 05:59 AM PST There are a mind-boggling number of graphics cards on the market aimed at PC gamers. While the best graphics cards come with a heavy price-tag, there are also solutions more suitable to the average pocket. If you are a real hardcore gamer then you have to purchase those expensive graphic cards to satisfy yourself. With that being said, here are some of the best graphic cards that improves your PC gaming experience: 1. Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Card This one uses  ATI's dual RV770 GPUs, connected with a special bridge onto a single PCB (printed circuit board) using the CrossFire technology, with two HD 4870 graphics processors and a whole 2 GB of ultra-bandwidth GDDR memory onboard. This card definitely has an impressive framerate and realistic detail rendering for even the most demanding games. It is based on an advanced 55nm design and requires DirectX 10.1 support. Specifications include 2.4 teraFLOPS of processing power, 230GB/s bandwidth, and 60Gtexels/s bilinear filtering. Of course, like other dual GPU cards, it tends to be a resource hog, consume lots of power and produce substantial heat, but their price has dropped in recent months. The price for AMD's fastest card has now dropped to about $420. The true potential of the graphics card is to be had at high resolutions of 2560×1600 and very high image quality. In short it tends to be an overkill in games that wouldn't be utilizing both the GPUs to the fullest extent. 2. Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 Graphic Card To compete with ATI's dual GPU Radeon HD 4870 X2, Nvidia released its own dual GPU card in January 2009. The GTX 295 is essentially two GTX 260 GPUs running in SLI on a single card, except that these chips have 240 stream processors each rather than 216, and they're made with a smaller 55 nm process. Nvidia has used the 2 PCB approach instead of trying to put 2 GPUs on one board like ATI. Using 480 stream processors for parallel computing this graphics card makes the best of its PhysX and CUDA technologies. The heat dissipation efficiency of its heatsink-and-fan makes it significantly cooler and quieter during usage. Games such as Call of Duty 4, Company of Heroes, Racer Driver: GRID ran smoother on the Nvidia as compared to Radeon. While the GTX 295 quite easily the best graphics card for PC gamers, they don't come cheap at almost $700. 3. Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX Graphic Card Similar in many ways to the GeForce 8800 GTS, the high-end 9800 GTX is a step down from the GTX 200 series from Nvidia. It comes with typically 512 MB of memory and it's a decent single GPU solution for serious gamers. The NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX graphics card enables lifelike realtime game play while providing optimal power management with its HybridPower technology. The HD engine also delivers good video and movie quality and SLI compatibility provides enhanced performance on nVidia SLI-ready motherboards. This card is reasonably priced at around $320. So, which is your best graphic cards among these top three? Or, do you know any other PC gaming cards that deserves a mention here.. then let us know!