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THERE hasn´t been much excitement with graphics cards until recently -- gamers now can play games with decent frame rates. (Games usually draw 60 frames per second, or fps. The minimum is 30fps; anything above 80fps will affect gameplay.)

But the actual hindrance to your gaming pleasure is not your graphics card, random access memory or CPU. It´s your monitor.

A monitor´s maximum resolution and refresh rate should determine the type of graphics card you should get. Benchmarks by reviewers are a good indication.

If your monitor resolution is 1,680 by 1,050 and the card you are looking at plays your favourite game at 120fps on the same system specifications, don´t expect to see 120fps on your screen. If your monitor has only 60 hertz, it will use 60fps of that 120fps, as 1Hz is considered as 1fps. This can cause screen tearing when you move a lot in the game along with dropped frames.

Another point to remember is that the newest generation of graphics cards still use about 100 watts of power during gaming sessions. So check your total system requirement to see if you need to buy a new power system unit (PSU) to support your new card.

You can use the PSU calculator from Thermaltake for an idea of what you may need.

Next, you need to make sure that your motherboard supports the format of your graphics card. There are three main formats for graphics: peripheral component interconnect (PCI), accelerated graphics port (AGP) and PCI-Express (PCI-E).

The oldest, PCI is still being used for closed-circuit TV recording and other video recording activities while AGP has been replaced by PCI-E. PCI slots are generally white in colour, AGP brown, and PCI-E less colour-restricted.

There are six main output ports for graphics cards. Digital video interface (DVI) and video graphics array (VGA) are the main outputs for PCs while DisplayPort and high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) are the replacements for S-video and composite video for TVs.

Of the six ports, DisplayPort and HDMI are the only ones that carry both audio and video out of the card, with DisplayPort slowly replacing HDMI.

Features are another big issue with gamers, but the one you should take note of is DirectX 11 compatibility for the newly released Windows 7.

With the growing popularity of Windows 7 and the efficiency of DirectX 11 over DirectX 10.1, there are many instruction sets to make games more realistic. You should not settle for anything less than DirectX 11 as most games this year will either be released under it or have patches to use it.

Like all PC devices, graphics cards tend to fail in three years. The main cause is usually heat. Fans slow down as oil evaporates or leaks from momentum and heat. Heatsinks get coated in dust and oil from no maintenance, and thermal paste turns into thermal dust.

Heat power surges are also another cause for alarm. If your graphics card is powered directly from the PSU, it will affect the graphics card with the motherboard.

Although we can´t do much against power surges, expect better regulators to be put between the PC and wall socket; we can get thirdparty coolers that provide better heat dissipation than the stock cooler that comes with the card.

Another way to damage a graphics card is through greed and curiosity -- overclocking.

It´s just like CPUs pushing higher voltages and not cooling the card adequately will either cause the card to overheat and damage the graphics processing unit or/and RAM, or it will quicken electromigration, which shortens the card´s lifespan.

That being said, graphics cards are the most frequently upgraded item in a PC and also the most expensive. So, when the newest game comes out and you want to play at a lower resolution, see if your graphics card can live up to your expectations.