Best PCI-E Card For £75 (inc VAT):

Radeon X1950 PRO

Codename: RV570 Process: 90nm Pixel Shaders: 36 Vertex Shaders: 8 Texture Units: 12 ROPs: 12 Memory Bus: 256-bit Core Speed MHz: 575 Memory Speed MHz: 690 (1380 effective) DirectX / Shader Model DX 9.0c / SM 3.0

With no high-performance DirectX 10 cards under £100 to compete against it, the relatively powerful X1950 PRO is having it’s heyday. The card’s other competition is the 7900 GS, which seems to have gotten more expensive of late as the DirectX 10 cards are being phased in. The X1950 PRO will beat the 7900 GS in most benchmarks at stock speeds.

BEST PCI-E CARD FOR £120 (inc VAT):

Radeon X1950 XT

Codename: R580+ Process: 90nm Pixel Shaders: 48 Vertex Shaders: 8 Texture Units: 16 ROPs: 16 Memory Bus: 256-bit Core Speed MHz: 625 Memory Speed MHz: 900 (1800 effective) DirectX / Shader Model DX 9.0c / SM 3.0

The X1950 XT is a powerful graphics card. Its core runs a mere 25 MHz slower than that of the X1950 XTX, and its memory runs a full 250 MHz (effective) faster than the X1900 XTX. In plain English, the card is on a par with the previous X1900 XTX champ, and is fast enough to run at high 1600x1200 with convincingly nice eye candy. Yes, it doesn’t sport DirectX 10 abilities, but that doesn’t really matter: the 8600 GTS – which costs a little more – isn’t even in the same performance league as the X1950 XT. The X1950 XT is an incredible deal at the £100 price point. The next performance tier is almost twice as high at £185, making the X1950 XT a very attractive choice.

BEST PCI-E CARD FOR £170 (inc VAT):

Radeon HD X2900 PRO

Codename: R600 Process: 80nm Universal Shaders: 320 Texture Units: 16 ROPs: 16 Memory Bus: 512-bit Core Speed MHz: 600 Memory Speed MHz: 800 (1600 effective) DirectX / Shader Model DX 10 / SM 4.0

The GeForce 8800 GTS 320mb finally has some strong competition – so strong, in fact, that it beats it in its price segment. The Radeon 2900 PRO is a barely disguised 2900 XT with slightly lowered clock speeds and very similar performance compared to its faster brother. With a relatively mild overclock, you’ll get 2900 XT performance from this card. The only downside is that the 2900 PRO are probably not going to be around for a long time, so get ‘em while they’re hot!