If you've just bought one of Apple's new Power Macs, consider getting one of these superfast graphics cards to go with it.
Henry Bortman
If you work with large Photoshop images or Excel spreadsheets that contain embedded graphs, you're probably all too familiar with the impatient little gnome who sits on your shoulder and whispers urgently in your ear: "Faster! Faster!" But buying a Mac that has a faster processor won't necessarily shut the little gnome up. The Mac's graphics-display system can also have a tremendous impact on how responsive your Mac feels and how quickly you can get work done.
If you own one of the new Power Macs or are considering purchasing one, you should check out accelerated-graphics cards. It's obvious why someone buying a Power Mac 9500/132 would be interested in such a card: The 9500/132 has no built-in graphics-display capability. If you don't buy a video card, you won't be able to see anything. But the rest of the new Power Macs ship with some type of graphics-display capability built in. The Power Mac 8500, 7500, and 7200 come with built-in VRAM, and the Power Mac 9500/120 comes with the 2-MB version of the ATI Xclaim GA accelerated-graphics card installed.
Why would owners of these Macs choose to shell out extra money for an accelerated-graphics card? Two key reasons: more speed (some people just can't get enough) and higher resolution. Although Macs that have graphics-display capability built in are fast, installing a third-party card can make your system faster still. And although the Power Macs that have built-in graphics-display capabilities can be upgraded by adding more VRAM to support resolutions of at least 1,152 x 870 pixels at 24 bits, accelerated-graphics cards can support even higher resolutions -- some allow resolutions of up to 1,920 x 1,280 pixels, an up-and-coming standard.
To find out just how much additional speed and resolution the first PCI accelerated-graphics cards offer, we tested seven cards from five vendors -- ATI Technologies, Diamond Multimedia, EA Research, IMS (Integrated Micro Solutions), and Radius. All the cards support at least 1,152 x 870 pixels with 24-bit color. Several other vendors -- Matrox, Miro, Number Nine, and YARC -- have cards in the works, but their products weren't available for testing at press time. Many of them should be shipping, however, by the time you read this (see the "Coming Soon" sidebar).
What We Tested and Why
Because accelerated-graphics cards can benefit everyone from publishing professionals to business gurus, we tested the cards in two Macs: a Power Mac 9500/132 and a Power Mac 7500/100. With the Power Mac 9500, we focused on Photoshop speed, since this machine sells largely into the professional graphics, video-production, and multimedia-authoring markets.
With the Power Mac 7500/100, we broadened our tests a bit. Although many Power Mac 7500 users also spend time working with graphics applications, the lower cost and bundled software of the Power Mac 7500 make it a more likely machine for someone who wants to run every aspect of a business on a Mac. Chores can range from preparing a promotional brochure, using Photoshop and QuarkXPress, to using Excel to track sales and expenses. Accordingly, we performed our suite of Photoshop tests on the Power Mac 7500/100 and then threw in a suite of tests using Microsoft Word and Excel.
Our general impression is that the major breakthrough this first round of PCI accelerated-graphics cards provides is not raw performance, but rather price/performance. In theory, PCI can move data more than three times as quickly as NuBus. Because Apple has long been promoting the speed advantage of the PCI bus, many of you may have expected to see equivalent increases in graphics-display speed overnight. But when we compared the speed of these new PCI cards in a Power Mac 9500/132 to that of one of the fastest NuBus cards, the Radius Thunder IV GX*1600, installed in a Power Mac 8100/100, we found at most a 25-percent speed improvement. Several PCI cards were actually slower in some tests than the Thunder IV GX*1600.
On the other hand, the prices Mac users have historically had to pay for this speed have been in the stratosphere. Radius' NuBus-based Thunder IV GX*1600, even today, costs close to $3,000. The company's PCI equivalent, the ThunderColor 30/1600, costs about $2,000. And many of the PCI cards we tested achieve similar speeds for many tasks but have prices in the $450-to-$650 range. We're witnessing an astonishing shift in the price/performance curve -- high-speed graphics cards are becoming affordable for a much larger group of users than ever before.
Speeding Along in a Power Mac 9500
If you spend much time working with Photoshop, you know that even if your system has enough RAM to keep your entire scratch file in memory, scrolling through a large image can be painfully slow. When we timed how long it took to scroll through a variety of Photoshop files on the Power Mac 9500/132, four cards -- the EA Research EAsycolor 1600/16, IMS TwinTurbo-128M, Radius Thunder 30/1600, and Radius ThunderColor 30/1600 -- distinguished themselves. The ATI Xclaim GA and the Diamond Javelin Video 3400XL lagged somewhat behind. The slowest card, the Radius PrecisionColor 8/1600, took nearly three times as long as the fastest one (see the "Professional Power" chart).
The Radius ThunderColor 30/1600 excelled at scrolling through an RGB file, but the EA Research EAsycolor 1600/16, the IMS TwinTurbo-128M, and the Thunder 30/1600 did better at scrolling through a CMYK image. We subsequently found out that the ThunderColor 30/1600 is optimized specifically for Photoshop at a 1:1 zoom factor, and we had run our tests at a 3:1 zoom factor. When we retested CMYK scrolling at 1:1, the ThunderColor 30/1600 outpaced the other three cards. And it was even faster in comparison when we scrolled with Photoshop's Smooth CMYK Composites option turned on.
Radius claims that its customers prefer to work on images at 1:1 and to use the ThunderColor 30/1600's hardware-zoom feature. Indeed, some users do prefer to work this way: Hardware zooming is instantaneous. But we know many users who complain that when they use hardware zooming, the menu bar, scroll bars, and tool palettes become inaccessible. They find automatic panning disorienting and prefer to use Photoshop's software zooming. In short, it's a matter of personal preference. (At press time, Radius told us it had developed new software that improves scrolling speed at zoom factors other than 1:1. The software upgrade should be available by the time you read this.)
But when we tested the cards' speed for calculation-intensive functions such as Resize and Unsharp Mask, the ThunderColor 30/1600 was the clear winner (although it barely beat the Radius Thunder IV GX*1600 installed in a Power Mac 8100/100). The ThunderColor 30/1600 is really two cards in one: a Thunder accelerated-graphics card and a Photoshop-specific ColorEngine daughtercard. The ColorEngine speeds up calculation-intensive Photoshop functions, such as Resize, Unsharp Mask, Gaussian Blur, and Rotate, by offloading them from the Mac's main processor to a quartet of DSPs (digital signal processors). (Radius' Thunder 30/1600 card can be upgraded to a ThunderColor 30/1600 card by the addition of a ColorEngine daughtercard.)
None of the other accelerated-graphics cards we tested have DSPs; instead, they rely on the Mac's main processor to perform these calculation-intensive functions and consequently did no better in these tests than a Mac's built-in graphics-display system. Some vendors offer stand-alone DSP-based Photoshop-specific accelerators -- such as the PowerShop, from Adaptive Solutions -- that you can use in conjunction with all the accelerated-graphics cards we reviewed.
Interestingly, the ThunderColor 30/1600 performed quite poorly -- in fact, worse than the built-in graphics-display system on the Power Mac 8500/120 -- when converting an RGB file to CMYK. That's because the card's software instructs Photoshop to use a larger-than-standard tile size when it stores images internally. (Tiles is Adobe's term for chunks of a Photoshop image.) This larger tile size allows the ThunderColor 30/1600 to achieve the greatest possible efficiency on the Photoshop operations that it accelerates, with one notable exception: The larger tile size causes RGB-to-CMYK mode conversions to slow down. Radius claims that its customers typically work in professional environments that have equipment capable of scanning images directly into CMYK mode and so have no need to perform such mode conversions. If, however, you do need to perform conversions, don't expect much help from the ThunderColor 30/1600.
How They Fared in a Power Mac 7500
Not everyone can afford a Power Mac 9500/132. If you have a Power Mac 7200 or a Power Mac 7500, odds are you're not running Photoshop day in and day out. More likely, you use a mix of applications, performing tasks that span the range from producing letters and spreadsheets to doing image processing and creating layouts. So, in addition to running our suite of Photoshop tests, we subjectively examined general system responsiveness and then performed objective tests with Microsoft Word and Excel, the two most popular productivity applications for the Mac.
Subjectively, all the cards we tested felt snappier than the Power Mac 7500/100's built-in graphics-display system. In our lab tests, the top performers with the Power Mac 9500 -- the EAsycolor 1600/16, Thunder 30/1600, ThunderColor 30/1600, and TwinTurbo-128M -- once again distinguished themselves (see the "Speed for the Mainstream" chart). The ATI Xclaim GA was the fastest card when scrolling through a Word document, but it lagged behind the top four in our other tests.
The Radius PrecisionColor 8/1600 was also, once again, the slowest in many tests. The Diamond Javelin Video 3400XL, however, was acceptably fast in the Excel and Photoshop tests but, when scrolling through a Word document, took nearly three times as long as the Power Mac 7500's built-in graphics-display system. In fact, the Javelin's slow speed when scrolling a Word document bumped it down to last place in overall speed, even though the Radius PrecisionColor was slower in more tests. (Diamond has indicated that it's aware of this problem and is working on a software fix, which should be available by the time you read this.)
We experienced another problem with this card as well. After we loaded our Excel test document, when the Javelin Video 3400XL was installed, Excel put up a dialog box that said, "Not enough memory to display completely." Again, Diamond has claimed that it is aware of this problem and will release a fix soon.
And finally, as with our tests on the Power Mac 9500/132, the ThunderColor 30/1600 left all the other cards in the dust for our Photoshop-filter tests (not shown). It is interesting to note that because the ThunderColor 30/1600 doesn't rely on the Mac's main processor to perform the complex calculations involved in using Photoshop filters, it ran these filters nearly as quickly with the Power Mac 7500/100 as with the Power Mac 9500/132.
Seeing Is Believing
Not only do accelerated-graphics cards increase the responsiveness of graphics operations but many also support higher resolutions than are possible with a built-in graphics-display system. Some users, however, may prefer super resolution -- 1,600 x 1,200 pixels. At this resolution, designers can see an entire two-page spread and still have room around the outside of the layout for displaying a variety of palettes. Alternatively, accountants can see significantly more cells of a spreadsheet.
Of the cards we tested, only two -- the ThunderColor 30/1600 and the Thunder 30/1600 -- offer 24-bit color at a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 pixels. (Each also comes in a less expensive model that supports a maximum resolution of 1,152 x 870 pixels at 24 bits.) All the other cards can be set to a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 pixels only at 8- or 16-bit color. For spreadsheet work, 8-bit color is adequate, but for color-image editing, the ThunderColor 30/1600's ability to provide super resolution at 24 bits is a definite plus. Of course, as with the other advantages Radius' cards offer, you pay (in cold hard cash) for this capability.
Note, however, that not all of today's 20- and 21-inch monitors support a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 pixels. Eventually, you'll begin to see affordable monitors that support a resolution of 1,920 x 1,280 pixels. Only three cards -- the EAsycolor 1600/16, the Thunder 30/1600, and the ThunderColor 30/1600 -- support this resolution. The two Thunder cards even allow you to use 24-bit color when running a monitor at a resolution of 1,920 x 1,280 pixels.
Radius is the only vendor to include a 30-bit RAM DAC (digital/analog converter) on its cards. The Thunder cards can already display 16.7 million colors, but the DAC allows a choice of colors from a palette of billions of colors. This scheme increases such things as color fidelity, making it possible for you to see greater detail in an image's shadow areas. But there's a catch: You can't take advantage of the RAM DAC unless you calibrate your card and monitor with Radius' ProSense Calibrator ($799 list). For those people who are soft-proofing images, however, the overall cost is worth it.
Mix-'n'-Match Problems
Just because a monitor and a card support a range of resolutions doesn't mean you can expect smooth sailing. To check for problems that can occur when graphics cards and monitors fail to communicate, we installed each card in a Power Mac 7500/100 and connected the card to an Apple Multiple Scan 20 Display. We then tested all possible resolution and bit-depth combinations for each card.
The most disturbing problem we found was with the EAsycolor 1600/16. To its credit, EA Research makes an effort to provide users with all the possible timings (a timing is represented by a combination of screen resolution and screen-refresh frequency -- for example, 1,152 x 870 pixels at 75 Hz) the EAsycolor 1600/16 supports. The EAsycolor 1600/16 displays all the possible timings in a pop-up menu in System 7.5.2's desktop Control Strip. Although it may seem user-friendly to make choosing the timing easy and although knowledgeable users who have monitors that support ultrahigh resolutions or nonstandard timings may appreciate being able to take advantage of their monitors' capabilities, most monitors aren't able to support all possible timings. If you choose a timing that your monitor can't support -- as we did, on more than one occasion -- your screen will go blank or display gibberish.
The workaround is far from obvious and requires a multitude of steps. Unfortunately, the EAsycolor manual neither warns you about this danger nor discusses what to do if the problem occurs. This surprise blank-screen "feature" is the main reason we recommend IMS' TwinTurbo-128M over the EAsycolor 1600/16, even though the TwinTurbo-128M doesn't support a 1,920-x-1,280-pixel resolution. The two cards, based on the same graphics-acceleration chip from IMS, are otherwise nearly identical. EA Research says that it will correct this problem in a future software release.
With the ThunderColor 30/1600, Radius takes a more elegant approach to making a wide range of resolutions available. Radius' Dynamic Desktop control panel lets you select the type of monitor you have attached and limits you to selecting only from the resolutions that monitor can support. If you change your mind about the setting, you can reset your choice by holding down the T key while restarting your Mac.
We observed another problem with the TwinTurbo-128M and EAsycolor 1600/16 cards. At 800-x-600-pixel resolution, the displays took on a decidedly green cast, which got worse as we moved from 24-bit to 8-bit color. Many older Mac monitors do not have ports designed specifically to accept the synchronization signals generated by graphics cards. Instead, these monitors use the signal line that accepts information about the amount of green in an image to also accept the sync signals from the card. This technique for transferring sync signals is called sync-on-green.
The IMS TwinTurbo-128M and the EAsycolor 1600/16 can send sync signals both on a separate signal line and on the green line. If the card and the Mac monitor interact correctly, the monitor accepts the separate sync signal and filters out the sync signal on the green line. Unfortunately, this didn't happen at the 800-x-600-pixel resolution. Because of a circuitry mismatch between the monitor and these cards, the monitor was unable to filter the sync signal out of the green line, resulting in too much green in the image.
EA Research claims that it can do nothing about this problem; users must purchase a special adapter to fix it. And admittedly, 800 x 600 pixels -- a resolution common in the PC world -- is not likely to be chosen by Mac users. The other cards that support sync-on-green, however, did not exhibit this problem at the 800-x-600-pixel resolution. IMS solves the problem by having you move a jumper on its card when you choose 800 x 600 pixels for a monitor that does not support sync-on-green.
A Card for Every Mac
There's no question that the Mac graphics-card market has been transformed. The new crop of PCI accelerated-graphics cards perform on par with or slightly better than the best of the NuBus cards, but the cost of the cards has plummeted. You can get superfast cards for around $500 to $600 each. Just six months ago, you would have paid three to four times that to get the same speed.
But despite reduced prices, not everything in the accelerated-graphics-card arena is coming up roses. Diamond's Javelin Video 3400XL was dog slow in our Word-scroll test -- an indication of software problems we hope will be ironed out in future versions. Using EA Research's EAsycolor 1600/16 was confounding at times, and the Radius Thunder 30/1600 and ThunderColor 30/1600 -- although offering many benefits other vendors have yet to match -- are still priced too far above the competition. Those caveats aside, here are our recommendations, based on the type of Mac you own and the type of work you do.
Power Mac 9500/132. Since this Mac doesn't have any built-in graphics-display capability, you need to buy something to provide it. For heavy-duty Photoshop use, we recommend the Radius ThunderColor 30/1600, thanks to its support for 24-bit color at a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 pixels and its Photoshop-filter acceleration. (Plus, the ThunderColor 30/1600 supports 24-bit color at a resolution of 1,920 x 1,280 pixels -- a standard that monitors will begin to support in the near future. Thus, the ThunderColor 30/1600 is a card you can grow with.) For those who want overall high speed but not necessarily Photoshop-filter acceleration or support for 24-bit color at exremely high resolutions, the IMS TwinTurbo-128M is a good bargain. Later, you can always add a Photoshop-specific accelerator, such as the Adaptive Solutions PowerShop.
Power Mac 9500/120. This Mac ships with a 2-MB ATI Xclaim GA. We don't recommend replacing this card with another, unless you really need the Photoshop-filter acceleration or the superior resolution provided by the Radius ThunderColor 30/1600 or 30/1152. Even then, you might be better off simply upgrading the Xclaim GA's VRAM to 4 MB in order to get acceptably high resolutions and then purchasing a separate Photoshop accelerator.
Power Mac 8500/120. This Mac comes with 2 MB of VRAM built in, and it offers good speed. If all you need is higher resolution, consider a 2-MB VRAM upgrade, for about $200. With it, your Power Mac 8500 will support a maximum resolution of 1,152 x 870 pixels at 24 bits. For those who need speed, the IMS TwinTurbo-128M offers good speed at a good price. For Photoshop acceleration, once again we recommend a Radius ThunderColor card.
Power Mac 7500 and 7200. The amount of VRAM these systems ship with is enough to see what you're doing, but it may cramp your style. If you're using a Power Mac 7200 and your main objective is to see more of an Excel spreadsheet, your least expensive option is to upgrade to 2 MB of VRAM, for about $100. Your Mac will then support a resolution of 1,280 x 1,024 pixels (at 8-bit color). Owners of Power Mac 7500s and 7200s who are looking for a bit more speed and even higher resolution (1,600 x 1,200 pixels at 8-bit color) but are on a tight budget would do well with the 2-MB version of the ATI Xclaim GA ($499 list). For a bit more, however, the IMS TwinTurbo-128M will give your system an even greater speed boost. For Photoshop users, we once again recommend the Radius ThunderColor 30/1600. Note that the speed boost this card's DSPs give to Photoshop filters is every bit as good with these Macs as it is with the Power Mac 9500/132 -- and every bit as expensive.
The race is on. And you can expect the lead to shift during the coming year, especially as vendors add more and more features to their cards (see the "Coming Soon" sidebar). No single factor will guarantee success, nor will the distinction between Mac old-timer and PC newcomer matter for long. When the dust settles, it will be the companies that strike the best balance of price; speed; features; and, yes, Macintosh savvy that will come out the winners.
Henry Bortman is MacUser's technical director. Senior project leader Jeffy Milstead managed the testing for this report.
The Bottom Line
SPEED, SPEED, AND MORE SPEED. Speed is what drives most users' purchases of accelerated-graphics cards. But we didn't rate the cards on that factor alone; a card's reliability and adherence to Mac standards also weighed heavily. And we took into consideration the range of resolutions each card supports; the support the vendor offers; and, of course, the card's price.
RadiusThunderColor 30/1600
Best Buy
Rating: Very Good/Outstanding (4.5 of 5 mice)
Price: Acceptable
Support: Outstanding
Speed: Outstanding
Resolution: Outstanding
For heavy-duty Photoshop use, we recommend the ThunderColor 30/1600 (list price, $2,499; estimated street price, $2,000). Although the card is expensive, it runs Photoshop filters quickly and it supports 24-bit color at a 1,600-x-1,200-pixel resolution. It also comes in a lower-resolution version, the ThunderColor 30/1152.
IMS TwinTurbo-128M
Best Buy
Rating: Very Good (4 of 5 mice)
Price: Acceptable
Support: Acceptable
Speed: Outstanding
Resolution: Acceptable
The best bargain of the lot, the TwinTurbo-128M (list price, $699; estimated street price, $625) provides great speed at a price that's substantially lower than what Mac users historically have had to pay. The TwinTurbo-128M also supports super resolution, but only at a 16-bit maximum.
Radius Thunder 30/1600
Rating: Very Good (4 of 5 mice)
Price: Poor
Support: Outstanding
Speed: Outstanding
Resolution: Outstanding
ATI Xclaim GA
Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)
Price: Outstanding
Support: Acceptable
Speed: Acceptable
Resolution: Acceptable
EA Research EAsycolor 1600/16
Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)
Price: Acceptable
Support: Outstanding
Speed: Outstanding
Resolution: Acceptable
Radius PrecisionColor 8/1600
Rating: Acceptable (3 of 5 mice)
Price: Outstanding
Support: Outstanding
Speed: Poor
Resolution: Acceptable
Diamond Javelin Video 3400XL
Rating: Poor/Acceptable (2.5 of 5 mice)
Price: Outstanding
Support: Acceptable
Speed: Poor
Resolution: Acceptable
Listing is alphabetical within groups of equal mouse ratings.
Professional Power: how the cards stacked up when running Photoshop
If you're a Photoshop guru, getting the maximum speed out of your Mac is high on your to-do list. To measure the top speed at which the PCI accelerated-graphics cards were able to handle a variety of Photoshop tasks, we first installed each card in a Power Mac 9500/132. We then installed Photoshop 3.0.4, giving it a 100-MB memory partition, so that our tests would not force Photoshop to access the Power Mac 9500's hard drive.
We timed how long it took to resize a 50-MB RGB image to 25 MB, scroll through it at 3:1 magnification, convert it to CMYK (which increased its size to 33 MB), scroll through it again at 3:1 magnification, and then apply an Unsharp Mask filter. We chose this sequence for two reasons: First, it represents several of the common tasks Photoshop users perform regularly, and second, it indicates exactly where and why each card performs well or poorly.
Products that take advantage of calculation-intensive Photoshop operations, for example, perform well when resizing images or applying an Unsharp Mask filter. We also noted that in the RGB-to-CMYK-conversion test, the Radius ThunderColor 30/1600 lagged behind the others. That's because the card performs the conversion itself, rather than using the Mac's processor. According to Radius, the ThunderColor 30/1600 makes up for lost time by allowing you to scroll through the CMYK file much faster -- a theory that did not hold up when we scrolled at a 3:1 ratio. (Scrolling at a 1:1 ratio did bear out Radius' claims, however.) The products are listed in order of overall speed when tested on both a Power Mac 9500/132 and a Power Mac 7500/100.
Speed for the Mainstream: how the cards performed with business applications
Not everyone can afford a Power Mac 9500/132. And yet, as always, speed remains important. We installed each card in a Power Mac 7500/100. We then ran numerous business-productivity tests and also performed the same Photoshop tests as we did with the Power Mac 9500.
In general, the results for the cards installed in the Power Mac 7500/100 were consistent with those for the cards installed in the Power Mac 9500/132. The products are listed in order of overall speed when tested on both a Power Mac 9500/132 and a Power Mac 7500/100.
Coming Soon: what to expect next from accelerated-graphics cards
The first round of PCI accelerated-graphics cards -- those reviewed for this article -- represent only the tip of the iceberg. By the time you read this, many of the vendors whose products we evaluated will be offering upgrades and/or add-ons. Some will be offering new products. In addition, several vendors whose cards weren't available in time for testing expect to ship Mac PCI graphics accelerators. Here's what to expect.
QuickTime Acceleration. The Diamond Javelin Video 3400XL, the EA Research EAsycolor 1600/16, and the IMS TwinTurbo-128M each contain hardware that accelerates QuickTime-video playback in scaled-up window sizes. At press time, however, software to take advantage of this feature wasn't yet available.
Better Color. EA Research is also intending to market cards that support super resolution in 24-bit color. These cards will contain a 30-bit RAM DAC, for greater color fidelity when they are used in conjunction with the company's forthcoming EAsycolor Calibrator.
Faster Speeds. Number Nine (617-674-0009) will ship the Imagine128, a card that the company is promoting as the only "true" 128-bit graphics accelerator, which Number Nine claims will make its card faster than any of those currently available. The Imagine128 will be available in two versions: a 4-MB model that will list for $899 and an 8-MB model that will list for $1,499.
More Choices. Miro (415-855-0940) will offer three miroCHROMA accelerated-graphics cards. The miroCHROMA 1024 ($249 list), the 1152GT ($599 list), and the 1600GT (price not determined at press time) will contain 2, 4, and 8 MB of VRAM, respectively.
QuickDraw 3D Acceleration. Matrox (514-685-2630) will release the MGA Millennium in 4-MB ($649 list) and 8-MB ($999 list) versions. As well as accelerating standard (2-D) QuickDraw, the Millennium will provide a significant boost to QuickDraw 3D. This should prove valuable not only for playback but also for creating rendered 3-D images and animations.
The Screamer, from YARC (805-499-9444), will also provide QuickDraw 3D acceleration. In fact, YARC is positioning its card as a QuickDraw 3D accelerator that can also drive a monitor. The 2+2 model (2 MB of VRAM for display, 2 MB for a dedicated depth buffer that improves the smoothness of 3-D animations) will list for $995; the 4+5 model (4 MB of display VRAM, 5 MB for a depth buffer) will list for $1,495.
A Closer Look: comparing basic features and vendor support
Every graphics card is a little bit different. Some graphics cards, such as the Radius ThunderColor 30/1600, offer everything from Photoshop acceleration to super resolution. Others, such as the ATI Xclaim GA, are designed for users who want extra speed despite a tight budget. Here are the basic characteristics that distinguish the cards, including information on the type of support the vendors offer.
Note that several cards come in models that are less expensive and that support lower resolutions and bit depths than the fully configured models. These cards are perfect for folks who use 15- or 17-inch monitors. Some cards also support resolutions as high as 1,920 x 1,280 pixels -- but unfortunately, today's mainstream monitors can't yet display this many pixels.
ATI Diamond EA Research c IMS Radius Radius Thunder c Radius
Xclaim Javelin Video EAsycolor TwinTurbo- PrecisionColor 30/1600* ThunderColor GA 3400XL 1600/16 128M 8/1600 30/1600
List price $649 $569 $649 (direct) $699 $599 $1,499 $2,499
Estimated street price $460 $515 NA $625 $500 $1,175 $2,000
