5. Bundle

Not a high one on our list typically, but at the prices these cards go for the buyer should be able to experience their 3D abilities without having to shell out more for games at the time of purchase. Manufacturers are getting smarter about game bundles as this roundup proves, some of the cards are dramatically superior in the type of games they include versus their competition.

6. Driver Updates

Nothing is more frustrating for a video card owner than to have to see online messages of increased performance resulting from the card's chip manufacturer's newest build of released "reference" drivers.

For many cards in this test, using reference drivers eliminates many of the special features that the card makers have worked to put in place for each of their specific products. Whether its an overclocking slider, or a specific resolution mode, each of the cards we tested offered superior drivers than the chip designer's reference versions.

Obviously the exception to this rule are cards produced by 3dfx and Matrox, since they design the retail product as well as the video engine that propels it. For the other cards, which all use TNT2 Ultra chips from nVidia, the time it takes for the card manufacturer to pump out the latest drivers based on nVidia's reference routines should be a factor of evaluation when comparing the cards, and in this comparison it is.

7. Overclockability

Let's face it, most of us like to overclock our PC parts for faster performance. Around the SE hardware lab, the machismo factor runs high as the "Frankensteined" KryoTech cooling units we've modified can attest to.

For this roundup, any card that included a driver-specific control to adjust either the core or memory (or both) MHz level on the card got an extra "gold star" from us. The myths perpetrated by some hardware manufacturers in the past regarding the possible "destruction of components" from overclocking have given way to responsible testing by consumers at a variety of speeds, something we're happy to see and applaud.

It does bear mentioning however that we did NOT include the actual overclockability level of the cards equipped with the aforementioned controls since that's an issue that varies from card to card. Some people may hit a memory speed of 190MHz with some of the overclockable cards in this roundup, while some may only achieve 175MHz, either way we didn't let our singular eval cards bias the staff one way or another when it comes right down to recommendations.

Also to not bias the final card ratings, we declined the option to include the overclocked benchmark performance scores from this article's scope. By omitting the inflated scores we seek to provide an accurate performance level baseline for any user who purchases the product.

Think of our default test results as the entry-level speed for the part, anything above default is free for the buyer to experiment with.