Every unfortunate while you may find yourself in that sad, lonely position of buying a new video card. Maybe it’s because you’re building a new computer or maybe it’s because your CPU left for a younger, faster GPU. Sure you tried to talk it out of leaving but how long could you keep it happy by playing the original Unreal Tournament in 800x600?

Any way you slice it, having to buy a new video card sucks. First, it costs you money. Second, you have to do all this research-shmeesearch. Pouring through endless articles, stupid sites with gobbledy-gook benchmark scores as well as confusing video card numbers where higher doesn’t mean better, just to get even more confused, for what? Spending $200 or more to double the frame rates on today’s games only to find out your new video card won’t play any decent games 6 months from now?

What you need to do is go to these sites below to see the very best in Video Card Comparison Charts and Benchmarks:

1. GPUReview’s Video Card Comparison Guide makes it easy to compare 2 different video cards side by side. Just select each card you want to compare and BOOM! their endless specifications will be listed onscreen so you can easily compare the two. How does your GeForce 7800GTX compare with an ATI 5770? *sniff* Badly. You’ll also get listings of how many cards are based on the same chipset, as well as reviews for each card and current prices! Invaluable information, all on one page. Clicking on the Card Database tab will also get you popular card match-ups like the Radeon 5770 vs GeForce GTS 250.

2. Tom’s Hardware Graphics Cards Performance Charts is a great page for comparing multiple video cards’ performances in different games and 3D benchmarks. Using Tom’s Hardware guides you can easily see the side by side benchmark scores of multiple cards you select in an easy graphical format. You can compare as many different graphics card as you’d like (I compared 6 when I went there). You’ll also find deals for the graphics cards you’re interested in by clicking
the See comparable product deals link next to each card in the charts. Tom’s hardware has helped many people make smart video card purchases and for that we thank them. By we, I mean me since there’s only one person running this freaking site.

Now that I showed you the best sites to make choosing your next video card as easy as can be, it’s time to show you a site that falls far short of this goal:

TechARP’s Desktop Graphics Card Comparison Guide currently covers 430 graphics cards from quite a few manufacturers. Cards are listed in table form with the slowest up top and the fastest at the bottom. Unfortunately the details are very boring and dry, listing specs in never-ending table listing that really doesn’t tell you much. And since you can’t compare different cards from different manufacturers, it’s pretty worthless as a guide. In fact it’s just plain horrid *shudder* Don’t go there. Even to see how bad it is. *ack* Trust me, I saved you some pain.

Now with The Best and Worst Sites to Help You Select Your Next New Video Card™ behind us, there’s two pieces of advice I must insist you take:

1. When getting close to picking out your next video card, stop by online retailers like Newegg.com and pay close attention to the comments from people that bought the card you want to get a feel for their experiences. You might be shocked to find the card manufacturer had problems with a specific make or batch of cards or find out that it sucks compared to a cheaper card out there.

2. Search for reviews on the Net about that particular card you want. It always pays to use Google or other search engines to see what the people are saying about your upcoming purchase. It might let you know you picked right or steer you clear of disaster. It’s your hard-earned money. Always take the time to do a little research or you could find out you just tossed good money away.

And now, I leave you to it. Have fun selecting your new video card!