Best Graphic Card Under 250$: NVIDIA or ATI

Selecting a graphics card that suits you from the vast sea of product line up is often a difficult task. For a gamer, the most important parts of his computer are the Graphic card, the processor and finally the RAM. In this article, I'll lay focus on finding out which the best card out there is under a budget of 250$. If you are a gaming enthusiast, this is the minimum amount you have to spend for a card. Even then, it is not guaranteed that you will get best for the money. After much research on the subject, I have decided on two products that suits the budget and also allows you to play even the latest games- yes, even Crysis.
The cards are "The ATI® Radeon HD® 3870" and the NVIDIA® Ge Force® 8600GT. Both the cards are very good performers and is worth the money on spends. Now on to the details...

The ATI® HD® 3870
The ATI HD 3870 is the second fastest card in the radeon line up. Its big brother, the ATI® HD® 3870 X2 is the fastest, selling at 500$. It is processed under a new 55nm technology which results in lower power consumption, lower heat and beyond doubt, increased performance. It has a PCIex 2.0 interface and a 256 BIT GDDR4 memory interface. The outstanding feature is the support of directx10.1 while latest Ge-force line up supports only DX10. It features pixel shader 4 and is expected to play Crysis and similar games with full option at 1280 resolutions. For less money, it has a performance extremely close to the 8800GT. Over clocking has a great scope on the subject. The card is also great for HD multimedia solutions.

Geforce 8600GT
The Ge Force 8600GT is in the same price range but not up to the ATI Radeon HD 3870. What you have is the Ge-Force title, a 500+Mhz core clock, a fast memory and a lot of graphic features. The over clocked version runs close to HD 3870 in benchmarks. Either cards are a good go for a budget of 250$ and will help you for at least a year.

If you are buying a new computer and wants a card in the 250$< mark, go for any of the cards. Both are a good buy...