While multi-card solutions are far from perfect, they do offer significant performance increases for those with a high budget with a thirst for high-resolution gaming performance.

At £285, the 3870 X2 is probably only a good buy if you need to play your games at 1920x1200 or higher resolutions. While it might be somewhat cheaper than two 8800 GT 512MB cards in an SLI configuration, the 3870 X2 does seem to be performance-limited in DirectX 10 applications for the time being. We hope Ati will correct this weakness in future driver releases. We’ll keep you posted.

2x GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in SLI configuration

Codename: G92 Process: 65nm Universal Shaders: 112 Texture Units: 56 ROPs: 16 Memory Bus: 256-bit Core Speed MHz: 600 Memory Speed MHz: 900 (1800 effective) DirectX / Shader Model DX 10 / SM 4.0

While two 8800 GT 512MB cards might be more complex to install and configure than a single 3870 X2, it will probably beat the X2 more often than not – especially when it comes to DirectX 10 performance. Of course this will all come at a higher price. Best Gaming Graphics Cards for your Money: AGP Interface

Best AGP Card for Under £50 (inc VAT): None With the 7600 GT lowering in price to £70, we can’t in good conscience recommend the far inferior cards that hover at the £50 price point.