The HD 4550 is a good, affordable option for high-def movie playback and occasional gaming. However, unless you’re on a shoestring budget, we’d recommend the HD 4670 instead. It offers a vastly superior graphics performance for a slightly higher premium.

Overclocked GPU and memory components aren't enough to supply fast frame rates for DirectX 10-based games, but if you want a modern card for your DirectX 9-based games, and also a card that's HDCP-ready, then this HIS model is as good as any.

Although it's not for gamers, at this price and this length, with a silent, passive heat sink on-board, it's perfect for media centres and those with low-end PCs who wish to get a little extra utility out of them.

This GPU is one of the best value-for-money options currently out there, but the additional cost of buying this pre-overclocked version may not be worth the few extra frames and the additional heat.

Although this card won't suit heavy gamers, it will suit casual gamers and is fine for running Windows Vista and watching movies with, plus the price is right.

If all you want is a card that'll make a nice job of displaying video, the 2400 XT is a pretty solid bet. It's quite pretty and, best of all, extremely quiet. However, it isn't even able to match the slightly lacklustre performance of the 8500 GT.

Our gaming tests didn't return very promising results, but we expect this silent, budget card will appeal to anyone building a media centre, or a smaller form factor PC, that can still run Windows Vista comfortably.

While it's not the best performer, the HD 2600 XT is reasonably priced. It doesn't quite stand up to cards that use NVIDIA's 8600 GTS chip, but it outperforms the 8600 GT-based cards that we've tested thus far.

The XFX PV-T80F-SHF9 is a great performer in current DirectX 9-based games and should go just as well when DirectX 10-based games are released. A high price and a poor bundle are the only downsides.

The MSI NX8600GT is a decent and affordable mid-range graphics card that's suitable for playing today's games, but it might struggle to run DirectX 10-based games when they're released.

The Gigabyte 8600GTS is an affordable mid-range card which will be able to display DirectX 10-based games in all their splendour when they're finally released. That being said, the fact that it's quiet and comes with a decent bundle makes it good for its price.

We don't like the EN8800GTS' large packaging, but it's a reliable card, with a good games bundle and a competitive asking price.