By: Tony Celeste

Looking for a high end video card at a reasonable price? You've found it in the eVGA GeForce 8800GTS, which is built on the highly successful nVidia GeForce 8 Series graphics chips. With full support for Microsoft DirectX 10, OpenGL 2.0, and Windows Vista, and frequently available for under $300, the eVGA GeForce 8800GTS 320 MB video card may represent the perfect combination of power and affordability.

Even without Sarah in the picture, this is a pretty impressive (and massive) graphics card.

It's easy to claim "power and affordability", but as a gamer, or someone who's shopping for one, you'll want proof. And of the dozens of popular benchmarking sites on the Internet, you need look no further than Tom's own 2007 VGA Charts.

In "overall - all games frames per second", the 8800GTS 320 MB scored near the top of this chart, alongside cards that cost hundreds of dollars more. It also finished in a virtual dead heat with the 8800GTS 640 MB version, which typically sells for $100 more. In the most challenging 3DMark06 SM2.0 Benchmark, the 8800GTS 320 MB also scored near the top of this chart, and actually beat out the more expensive 640 MB version!

Of course, speed is a wonderful thing, but appearance is equally important, and the nVidia 8800GTS chipset delivers. nVidia Quantum Effects Technology offers advanced shader processors and physics computation to render the most realistic special effects you'll find on a personal computer. Microsoft DirectX 10 Geometry Shaders add realism, with lifelike environmental effects such as flowing water. The nVidia Lumenex Engine offers realistic lighting and 16x antialiasing, eliminating jagged edges between foreground and background objects. And the nVidia Unified Architecture dynamically allocates GPU processing power amongst geometry, physics, vertex, and pixel shading operations, to create startlingly lifelike 3D graphics.

The eVGA GeForce 8800GTS 320 MB sells for between $285.99 and $401.68, with an additional $20.00 mail-in rebate sometimes available. It's nVidia SLI ready, with a maximum digital resolution of 2560x1600, and supports two digital or analog monitors.