Introduction

PCI express and DDR2 have shown us over the last few months to be slow-adoption technologies as everyone comes to learn that they offer no real benefits as of yet and tend to cost more than their legacy counterparts. PCIe video cards in general don't cost more on their own, versus an AGP equivalent, but there is still the cost of a new motherboard to support the new slot. DDR2, on the other hand, blatantly costs more and in many cases, tends to run somewhat slower than DDR1. Even with Intel's strong push for the new technologies, which can be found on many of the newer Intel motherboards that sport the new 775 socket, these new kids on the block don't yet have enough curb appeal to warrant the deeper dive into your bank account or wallet.

For the time being, it is still a safe bet to stick to DDR1 and AGP for your system upgrade and building needs. Given some more time, DDR2 and PCIe will most definitely become the new standards, but until then, there's no reason not to save some cash and stick to the tried, true, and competitively priced options that are still available.

Be sure to check out our RealTime Pricing Engine for up to the minute prices from some of the best online retailers that we could find.

Video Cards - ATI

First off, let us just say that ATI's X800 offerings are still far too expensive to fully recommend in a price-oriented guide such as this. The performance is certainly worth it if you're a hardcore, avid, die-hard gamer, but for the majority of users who either play games casually or don't even play at all, there are much more affordable options still around to fill that empty AGP slot. Most importantly, the alternatives don't cost upwards of $400.

Sapphire's Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB doesn't want to give up its position as one of the best values in video cards for gamers, and this week brings no reason to take that position away. With blazing performance in games like Unreal Tournament 2003/2004, Battlefield: 1942, and many others, along with acceptable performance in more intensive games such as Far Cry or even Doom 3, the 9800 Pro still has the most bang for your buck. For most people, frame rates of anything above 30-45 FPS is more than acceptable and beyond that, most people don't notice much difference. For this reason, we have to continue our recommendation of the 9800 Pro over its more powerful brothers such as the X800 series of cards. Game developers aren't likely to alienate this card any time soon, even with beasts like the X800 or NVIDIA's 6800 series running around.

On the budget gaming side of things, the 9600XT lineup has come down in price enough to put it almost on par with the 9600 Pro. Currently available for under $140, the Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 128MB comes to mind as a good option if you don't have a ton of money to spend between now and your next LAN party.

If gaming isn't a priority in any way, you can, of course, stick with onboard video providing your motherboard has it. If not, it's hard to beat the bargain-basement pricing on a Radeon 9000. The ATI Radeon 9000 64MB won't play the latest games too easily, but it will suffice for the type who just needs to check email from the family and book the occasional cruise online. The sub-$40 price tag certainly shouldn't hurt the wallet too much either.

Video Cards - NVIDIA

Much like ATI's top-of-the-line cards, NVIDIA monsters such as the 6800 series still have a distance to go until they become more affordable. It does appear, however, that top cards from NVIDIA may be getting closer to the pricing sweet spot a little quicker than ATI, which is great news if OpenGL games like Doom 3 are your main focus. It has been shown repeatedly that NVIDIA manages OpenGL support extremely well and tends to surpass ATI when cards of equivalent standards run games that use the well-established technology. Regardless of this, the prices are still too high to fully recommend for anyone, except for the most dedicated of gamers who absolutely demand the highest possible frame rates and eye candy while keeping the resolution cranked up.

For the time being, and until something new comes around to replace the top lineup, something from the 5900 range of cards would be the best option for an immediate purchase. Gigabyte's GeForceFX 5900 128MB PCIe card has the best price for that chipset in a PCI Express package. If you're looking to take on the new slot, keep in mind that so far, boards that support PCIe also use DDR2. There are some exceptions, but if you're going to make the change anyway, you might as well take DDR2 now. This isn't because DDR2 is the best option currently, but it will prevent you from having to upgrade your motherboard once for the PCIe option and again later for DDR2 when it becomes a more viable purchasing option.

AGP-based motherboards still have the majority of the market and will continue to have it for quite a while to come. Do we even need to go into how long it took for ISA to disappear? In any case, the LeadTek GeForceFX 5900 128MB is a great buy this week and has similar performance and even pricing as the Gigabyte PCIe card mentioned above. This would be the card to pick if you love gaming, but don't have a ton of cash to slap down for a 6800 from NVIDIA or an X800 from ATI.

The budget market has the Gainward GeForceFX 5700 128MB to offer us at under $100 shipped. This card is a solid choice if gaming is not the biggest factor in your decision, yet you would still like to play once in a while. You can certainly get away with less, i.e. onboard video or even a 5200 series, if you don't intend to game and just need the basics such as email, web browsing, or even video chat.

DDR Memory

DDR prices haven't shown any of their historical price rises for the past few weeks and we certainly hope it stays that way. Even better would be some nice price cuts, but when the industry knows that it needs to push DDR2 to stay current with Intel's marketing and roadmaps, it will likely not drop DDR1 prices in fear of undermining its efforts to get DDR2 onto and quickly off of store shelves and into your system.

Until DDR2 becomes a bit more widespread and prices come down, it's still DDR1's time to shine in the cost per megabyte area as well as real world performance.

If you're shooting more for capacity than you are latency and cost, a half gig stick of PC3200 would be a good choice for good performance, pricing, and overall value. Corsair's PC3200 512MB Value stands out as an option that can be had for less than $85 shipped and that is capable of keeping your system going for some time to come. Throw in the lifetime warranty that is almost the standard among the best memory manufacturers and you have yourself a good combination without forking over too much cash.

For the overclocker in all of us, memory is a big deal. One module that stands out as a great value and even a great performer is Corsair's PC4000 512MB XMS module. IT isn't going to give you the most extreme overclock, even considering the Hynix chips used, but it is still very acceptable and, more importantly, stable.