PowerColor X800 XT Platinum Edition VIVO

The specifications of this card are very impressive. It can push up to 35.2GB of data every second between its 256MB of GDDR3 memory subsystem and its ATI Radeon X800 XT GPU. It can render an astounding 8320 million pixels per second thanks to its 16 pixel pipelines and 520MHz GPU clock.

But even these vital stats weren't enough to beat the frame rates of Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT-based AGP cards in Doom 3 and Unreal Tournament 2003. Nevertheless, its scores were very consistent in Doom 3, and even when we cranked up all the settings, its frame rate dropped very little.

Physically, the card requires supplemental power from one of your hard drive (molex) power connectors. A slim cooling system sits on the GPU and consists of a heat sink and a quiet fan assembly. A good game bundle comes with the card, and some video editing software is provided.