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.

Overall, the EN8600GT, with the OC Gear module, offers a convenient way to overclock and monitor your card's performance, but it costs $50 more than ASUS' regular EN8600GT graphics card. The extra cost, and only very slight performance advantages when overclocking, mean it's worth sticking to the regular EN8600GT instead

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.

It's been a long wait but we're very happy with the results of ATI's new graphics chip so far. Although it's not up to the challenge of NVIDIA's GTX or Ultra cards, there's potential for a promising high-end version in the future. Until then, the Asus HD 2900 XT is an excellent value-for-money card.

It's the most powerful card on the market and trumps its closest competitors, but it's also the most expensive. If you want the best frame rate possible from a single card though, this is the one to buy.

The Radeon HD2900XT has been a long time coming and in our eyes, it was well worth the wait. This card offers everything the competition offers and a touch more. Unfortunately we were unable to test DirectX 10 games this time, but we expect to see some promising results.

The MSI NX8500GT can be summed up as an inexpensive card that's perfect for an entry-level Windows Vista PC, or a media centre PC, but it shouldn't be considered if you want to play current and future games.

While the cooler on this card differs from the norm, nothing else really separates it from the crowd. Its default clock speeds are slow for the price, so if you're looking for an inexpensive gaming card, you'll have to look elsewhere.

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.