» Tech Report: Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GT graphics processor
This is an absolutely spectacular time to be a PC gamer. The slew of top-notch and hotly anticipated games hitting stores shelves is practically unprecedented, including BioShock, Crysis, Quake Wars, Unreal Tournament 3, and Valve's Orange Box trio of goodness. I can't remember a time quite like it.
However, this may not be the best time to own a dated graphics card. The latest generation of high-end graphics cards brought with it pretty much twice the performance of previous high-end cards, and to add insult to injury, these GPUs added DirectX 10-class features that today's games are starting to exploit. If you have last year's best, such as a GeForce 7900 or Radeon X1900, you may not be able to drink in all the eye candy of the latest games at reasonable frame rates.
And if you've played the Crysis demo, you're probably really ready to upgrade. I've never seen a prettier low-res slide show.
Fortunately, DirectX 10-class graphics power is getting a whole lot cheaper, starting today. Nvidia has cooked up a new spin of its GeForce 8 GPU architecture, and the first graphics card based on this chip sets a new standard for price and performance.
However, this may not be the best time to own a dated graphics card. The latest generation of high-end graphics cards brought with it pretty much twice the performance of previous high-end cards, and to add insult to injury, these GPUs added DirectX 10-class features that today's games are starting to exploit. If you have last year's best, such as a GeForce 7900 or Radeon X1900, you may not be able to drink in all the eye candy of the latest games at reasonable frame rates.
And if you've played the Crysis demo, you're probably really ready to upgrade. I've never seen a prettier low-res slide show.
Fortunately, DirectX 10-class graphics power is getting a whole lot cheaper, starting today. Nvidia has cooked up a new spin of its GeForce 8 GPU architecture, and the first graphics card based on this chip sets a new standard for price and performance.
