If you’re a stickler for innovation, ATI’s ‘double-or-nothing’ approach is unlikely to tickle your fancy, but it remains a powerful performer. On the other hand, its benchmark results were not as impressive as we would have liked from a top-end graphics card.

EVGA's e-GeForce 9600 GSO is a tasty little offering with one of the best cost-to-performance ratios we've seen. Hardcore gamers may want to cough up for something a little more gutsy, but for the asking price you can’t go wrong.

Put simply, if you need a graphics card that’s able to play most recent 3-D intensive games at reasonable performance levels, EVGA’s latest 8800GT variant is a good choice at a reasonable price.

Although this card is not bad in its own right, it lacks the punch-per-dollar provided by ATI cards in the same price-bracket. But if you're unwilling to leave the NVIDIA camp and are looking for a moderately well-performing budget option, the EVGA GeForce 9800 GT (512MB DDR3 PCI-E) is worth a look.

The Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 TOXIC is a cooler and slightly more powerful alternative to the standard HD 4870 board. It will mainly suit DIY overclockers who want to get the most out of their system without turning their PC into a furnace.

If you're a firm believer in the 'behemoth GPU', Sapphire's Radeon HD 4850 x2 will do little to sway your opinion. While it performed solidly enough in our benchmarks, it failed to match NVIDIA's single-GPU GTX 280 offering. Nevertheless, it remains a good option for any self-respecting Radeon fan with a penchant for monitors.