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 TOXIC HD 4850 (512MB GDDR3 PCI-E) is an excellent factory-overclocked graphics card that will offer mainstream gamers plenty of bang for their buck. Cool, fast and energy-efficient: what's not to love?

When it comes to gaming performance for your dollar, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 is currently unmatched. If that's not enough reason to snap this card up, we don't know what is.

If you have a graphics enthusiast’s heart, but lack the wallet size to match, then ATI's Radeon HD 4850 is the kind of bargain you’ve been waiting for. It offers a solid performance in all but the most power-hungry applications, at a price that even a pauper could afford.

The Gigabyte GeForce 9600GT 512MB (GV-NX96T512HP) is one of the best passively cooled graphics cards we've seen, offering plenty of tweaks over the 9600GT reference board. Its performance in our benchmarks easily matched the majority of its fan-equipped competitors, ensuring you don't need to compromise on power.