So I have a confession to make. I'm no computer players. Even after the creation of the website TwitchGuru.com recent year for Tom's hardware, and the recruitment of a number of freelancers and the assignment of stories, tons of games (the twitch refers to the way many players Flick to blow their checks away opponent or whatever they do), spend more time in front of the screen, as I already do not get me too excited about.

A combination of the upcoming Windows Vista and more interest in SecondLife has me motivated to be smarter about the gaming world. My first step was the attempt to create a platform that would have the good with games. This was a project, and began to suck me in.

For those of you that build your own PC from scratch, that's no problem: You buy the parts you need, and you can think of a decent machine that has a lot of graphics performance. But I did not really have time to start a construction project now.

So I thought I would just likeUpgrading is a relatively new Dell I bought earlier this summer. Let's go.

This could be for some old news from you, but bear with me. There are basically three interfaces and two suppliers families. First, the interfaces: standard PCI, AGP, and the newer PCI-Express. They use three different electrical connections, and instead focus on the bus-speed and RSS feeds, you must make sure that whatever your motherboard, the card you buy has match.

So I have carefullyCheck my Dell, which as a rule to cover, so does this anyway no time at all, and I realize that it not be upgraded easily, like most low-end PCs, it is the ordinary PCI slots that the oldest video cards and not take very good about this. We will get back to you in an instant. Let's talk about the two main families of graphics cards, one from ATI (now owned by AMD) and one from nVidia. They are about the same, but each family has dozens ofdifferent products. And they are not referring simply called parsing: for example, uses the ATI "XT" moniker to higher-end cards, while nVidia uses the label to refer to lower-end cards.

I have a large number of pages that you specify the statistics of the ATI family and the statistics of the nVidia family.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/131
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/132

They are maintained by Gabriel Torres from Brazil of all places. He has a fixed taskShows you what the composition of each card. ) The search for things (in descending order, are the size of the memory interface (128-bit or better yet, 256-bit), and how many pixels per clock tick processing the card. Secondary importance is the actual speed of the graphics processor – if you can push more bits per tick by, you can talk before the game that way.

Okay, armed with this information, I first take the path of least resistance – a block away from my houseis an Office Depot, and they sell in their beautiful new store a total of four graphics cards. Two of them are AGP video cards – which do not fit into my Dell. Two of them are PCI cards that are so crappy that they are not much of an improvement over the integrated graphics, which I already have. I go home, go online to Newegg.com and you will find an ATI card, which is about $ 100, which seems to offer promise. Remember the old PCI cards, not the shiny new ATI and nVidiaMake the moment, so you will not be too much PS here. But at least I will have something that (assuming that I got the right role), will now have a little boost to my (the age of some type), Dell.

So now I have to think about it slowly, try a PC with a decent graphics card pre-installed by the major online retailers. And after about an hour browsing around the web, I conclude that there has been almost impossible. Most of the lower-end model computershave Intel integrated or otherwise low-end video circuitry, which is how I ended up with the configuration that I have. Forget about buying a laptop with decent graphics, unless you want to pay a lot of dough and have to buy an asbestos shield for your legs if you really want to use it on your lap.

Dell sells a range of desktop models, the dimension E521 and C521, which are configured so that you can use ATI X1300 Pro cards. You end up paying close to $ 1000 for these models to the timeThey outfit them with enough RAM (2 GB I am recommending these days) and a few other essentials. The X1300 Pro would give is what I get the lowest high-end graphics card, you should, which means that they sell many others who can provide more firepower (and more expensive than the base-to-PC). But that the entire selection, it is from Dell, when it comes to buy something with better graphics at a reasonable price point. They sell their XPS line with many other high-end optionsgo, including the graphics card to choose from, but start at $ 2,000 and quickly, up from there to almost twice as high.

HP and Lenovo Desktop sell only models with integrated graphics chip, at least from the models I examined. Gateway had a lot more choice of cards, but you only had to de-select the default option for the purchase of Microsoft Office before you went to the configuration of the PC – that was annoying. And she only sells PCs with Intel CPUs, which is also unsatisfactory becauseMany players prefer the AMD processors. I could get a decent PC for a bit more than $ 1300, with a high-end nVidia GeForce 7900GT, or if I wish I could go more to the forefront of the ATI line and pay for a X1900 dual-card to spend a solution. Of course, they get the entire season on what goes on the gateway.

Are you still here with me? How hard is to have someone, you look to find what they want to buy? And I did not even get my DirectX horror stories either. Then I save that foron another day, because as soon as your graphics card, you have to deal with the many-Splendored Thing, that is DirectX a lot, and adjust the correct version of what takes their game and the Card.

Now some of you might say at this point, power, you are not stupid, because any serious player does not go with Dell or Gateway, but they themselves will either be built or buy the ultra-high-end lines such as line VoodooPC (now owned by HP) or Alienware (now owned by Dell). These machines fromapproximately $ 4000, though. It's a long way from the $ 500 – $ 1000 ordinary PC that most people will buy from the big retailers.

Graphics will be a big deal in the coming year, as more people with Vista-ready devices to realize just how immature they are miserable with their integrated graphics cards. And it's a shame that the retailers not a good job by the products together is the sense of this market can do. And it's a shame that it seemsa hole in the market between the ultra-high-end PC (at $ 3,000 and more) and PCs, which for most of us that approximately one-half to one third, which will pay off.