ATI and NVIDIA are pushing their marketing to get you to think you need their latest and greatest video card for your computer. They talk about the substantial increase in performance and say you will need it. However, do you really need that performance; especially at the high price they are asking?

As with most decisions regarding computer hardware you first determine which of your activities will your computer need to support, then determine which software will be best to support those activities, and then what hardware would be best to support the running of that software. Are you looking at more office activities that would involve word processing, electronic spreadsheets, financial management, database operations, and simple to moderate PowerPoint presentations? Are you looking at more communication and research activities like email, web browsing, or instant messaging? If you fit in just these categories having a video card with substantial 3D capabilities and speed will not be important for at least another two years and possibly far longer. For now you only need a low-level/value video card costing around $100 or possibly even less. If you want to buy for the future you will only need what is currently a mid-level video card ($150-$250), which will have similar capabilities as a low-level/value card in two years. As with all video cards you do need to check to see if the card will support your monitor (almost all support those with VGA inputs, but some do not support those with DVI such as LCD panel displays).

What if you are the type of person who wants to edit and create images, pictures, and graphics? This is where you start to look at going to a higher than low-level/value video card. Most of this is working with two-dimensional images, but may have some three dimensional elements. You also have to look at image size and color depth (how many bits) your images are going to be, and does your card support those image sizes and color depths at a refresh rate that is non-flickering (at least 85 Hz is best). You also may start to get into what versions of the DirectX and Open GL graphics hardware/software interface standards your video card supports. Still at this point a low-level/low-cost card may be best for you.

Now if you are into video, this steps you up to the next level, the middle one ($150-$250). A lot of the video cards at mid- and high-level have video compression and decompression support. If you have a very fast CPU this may not be as important. However if you are compressing or decompressing for file formats that can have a high compression rate such as Windows Media, MPEG-4, or Divx or doing video conferencing you will probably appreciate all the help you can get. You also have to look at whether you will be displaying HD video from your computer, which again video card assist is something very helpful. Also some of these cards can help with 3D rendering out to a file.

If you like to play 3D games but are not competing with others at a high level or playing games that are extremely strenuous on a video card, a mid-level card may be best for you. Low-level cards do not play the more recent 3D games very well, if at all. I have seen a computer with a low-level card playing the highly 3D graphical game Far Cry, and the screen was so jerky it was almost unplayable. Stepping up to a mid-level card can make a large difference in enjoying your game play.

We now step away from the average computer user. Are you a high-level computer gamer that plays the newest games, competing with others online, at LAN parties, or contests and your competition is not the run of the mill, but high-level? Do you play or intend to play games that can make computers with high-level video cards have problems keeping up such as Far Cry, Doom 3, and Half Life 2? Do you create and edit images involving 3D and/or creating video and animation for professional work or entering into contests and festivals? Additionally, do you just look to see if a video card supports DirectX 8 or 9, but if it supports DirectX 9.0a, 9.0b, or 9.0c? If you are one of these people, you are one of the few that should consider buying a high-level video card (higher than $250). These cards not only have the best 3D rendering speed for games, but also the best video compression and decompression support and 3D rendering to file support (some professional workstation video cards may be better for that, but they cost a lot more). But do you want to pay $500-$600 for a video card? Most would say no. That is why within the high-level the manufactures have 2-3 sub-levels of cards. That means you can get close to highest performance and keep an additional $100-200 in your wallet. However, look carefully because there can be a significant difference in performance between the sub-levels of a manufacturers high-level cards (mid- and low-level categories of cards sometimes have sub-levels, and the same advice holds).

There are a few additional guidelines I would use in choosing a video card. One, I would buy a card that uses either an ATI or NVIDIA Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). These are the standards of the industry. Do not match a high-level video card with a slow CPU. Your CPU will not be able to feed the card fast enough and you will not get full performance out of your video card. A good rule of thumb on this is to not pay more for your video card than your CPU. You want to match the CPU and GPU, where neither is a choke point to the other. In many circumstances paying about the same for a CPU and a video card produces a good match. Be aware that a mid-level card can out perform the highest level card of a previous generation and the price of the two cards may not reflect that. Another thing to consider is that we are currently transitioning from AGP slot video cards to PCI Express graphics slot video cards. You might think it will be worth your while to move over to a PCI Express motherboard if you are planning to make major component changes to your computer (getting a whole new computer is probable). You also want to see if a majority of the games you play use DirectX or Open GL. ATI has better performance on DirectX, but NVIDIA has better performance on Open GL. Also look at independent run benchmarks and reviews of video cards, such as found in the Graphics and Displays Section of Tom's Hardware Guide (http://www.graphics.tomshardware.com).

Don't be fooled by the hype. You probably don't need a high-level video card. A low- or mid-level card is probably right for you. Just discover what you want to do with your computer, find what software will best support that, and then what video card will support that software to the level where you need it. Buy just the video card you need and keep some additional dollars in your wallet.

Timothy Everingham is CEO of Timothy Everingham Consulting in Azusa, California. He is also Chair (CEO) of the Los Angeles Chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH, the largest chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques and one of Southern California's significant professional organizations within the entertainment and media industries. He is also on the Management Information Systems Program Advisory Board of California State University, Fullerton; which he also graduated from with honors with the double majors of Management Information Systems and Accounting. In addition he is the Vice President of the Windows Media Users' Group of Los Angeles. He is also part-time press in the areas of high technology, computers, video, audio, and entertainment/media and has had articles published throughout the United States and Canada plus Australia, England, & Japan. He is a member of TUGNET. Further information can be found at http://home.earthlink.net/~teveringham