Best way to test a video card

[Falcon51]

What's the best way to test a video card without spending alot of money on a piece of software I'll only get limited use out of? I use dxdiag right now but it's limited in the amount of usefull information. I need something that would tell me how good a card would be for gaming software.

[Midknyte]

If you want to compare performance, you'd need to look at benchmarks. There are plenty of review sites for video cards. They will post benchmark numbers from 3DMark and framerates of various games. Anandtech, Hardocp, Tom's Hardware, and other sites do the work for you.