PNY Geforce GT 220

This graphics card from PNY uses the Nvidia Geforce GT 220 chipset and has 1GB of its own memory.

It’s not the fastest chipset around, but if your computer has a built-in graphics processor (it doesn’t have a separate graphics card) or it has an ageing graphics card and games, particularly, are starting to slow down, it will give a performance boost.

It’s not just for gamers – it will also give a performance boost if you’re playing or editing video, especially in high definition. In addition to the VGA and DVI monitor outputs there’s also HDMI for connecting to a flat-panel TV.

We don’t often review graphics cards because they can be a pain to install. You’ll need to remove the cover (it can’t be installed in laptops, and must be installed in a PCI Express slot - it won’t work with older computers that have AGP slots), remove the existing card if there is one and then place this one in. If the computer didn’t already have a card you may need to change settings in the Bios too.

In all, that might sound like a lot of work but the PNY Geforce GT 220 could be an excellent boost to an ageing computer.