Darren E. Polkowski

Today, Nvidia unloads both barrels at ATI with the debut of the GeForce 7900GTX and 7900GT for the extreme crowd and the 7600GT for those willing to settle for the mid- to high-end graphics card experience. Punching back, ATI Radeon X1800GTO has unveiled a scaled-down and cheaper version of its R520. Did someone say "buyer's market"?

Nvidia recently provided an AGP upgrade path that didn't exactly shine, considering its cost and the reference design. The surprise of the retail and 'etail' offering was that it hit the market considerably cheaper than the suggested retail price. Today we demonstrate two versions of the card at these new price points.

For those of you who thought next-generation graphics meant trashing your AGP setup and investing in a PCIe motherboard and card, think again. NVIDIA is not about to let AGP die yet and has paved an upgrade path for AGP graphics with the launch of its GeForce 7800GS card.

In November, NVIDIA delivered its smashing blow, pushing ATI off the top platform spot. Today, the X1900 series fires back with 384 million transistors and 48 shader units in 16 pixel pipelines. As a result, ATI now walks away with both the single and dual card title belts.

What kind of performance can you squeeze out of a sub-$200 PCI Express graphics card? We overclocked value-segment cards with ATI and NVIDIA processors to see whether you really get what you pay for or not.

Sure, ATI X800 has been around for a long time, but as our tests show, you really don't notice much difference in its gaming performance compared to the latest high-end cards. And when overlclocked, of course, it really screams - all for less than $175.

Today, NVIDIA lifts the veil to reveal the identity of its mysterious next generation of cards: the GeForce 7800 GTX 512. This new entry provides more internal bandwidth, higher memory capacity, and a clock speed surprise. With a tremendous four heat pipe cooler, this card puts NVIDIA back on the graphics performance throne - just in time for the holiday shopping season.

Everyone knows that NVIDIA is in the middle of a winner-takes-all fight with ATI, but did you know that this battle means better hardware for us all? NVIDIA has launched the 6600 with DDR2, to bring PCI Express graphics cards with good performance to the masses. At just $99, you get a lot of card for very little.

NVIDIA's Release 80 driver supposedly offers improvements for dual-core CPU users. But where does that leave the single-core folks-who happen to represent the majority?

A lot of new graphics cards have been hitting the market recently. With so many manufacturers, variations and price points, does the 7800 GT make sense? We think so, and here's why.

You want to invest a few grand in a pre-built system for the best gaming experience the retail market can offer. We compared the performances, levels of service and builds of machines from the top vendors - and learned first hand that not all are created equal.

ATI has (finally) launched its X1000 family and, as our benchmarks show, you will not be disappointed. But the issue now is about when you can actually buy one of the cards.

Today there is a new face in the high performance mobile graphics market as nVidia launched a new flagship mobile graphics processor, the GeForce Go 7800 GTX. Unlike the launch of the Go 6800 Ultra where Dell had exclusivity at the launch, the Go 7800 GTX will debut in systems from a wide range of OEMs worldwide just about three months after the launch of the desktop chip.

Dual graphics card configurations from ATI no longer exist only on paper. ATI says it offers a dual card solution that provides more flexibility and offers greater performance. Today we can take a look at the new technology to see if this is true or not.

Totally Awesome Computers' expensive system comes packed full of goodies to complete your ultimate gaming rig. But if you value performance first and foremost, is this machine for you?

High-quality components, superior customer service and all the trimmings: Falcon Northwest's Mach V does it all, but still, does this system live up to this gaming machine builder's venerable reputation?

CyberPower's XLC SLI gaming machine had plenty of power, but a water-cooling problem dampened our enthusiasm somewhat. Otherwise, the system's first-rate components, the vendor's meat-and-potatoes approach to design and inexpensive price made the XLC difficult to ignore.

We got our hands on an Alienware water-cooled ALX for our third SLI system review. Overclocked and packed with goodies, the $5,600 gaming machine offered up some surprises - not all of which were pleasant.

As part of our continuing coverage of SLI systems, the M6 from California-based OEM and reseller ABS represents a no-holds bar effort. Extreme-end components include an AMD FX-57 CPU and two sticks of 1 GB Corsair DDR PC3200XL on an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard.

Our latest SLI gaming system review takes us to All American Computers, which offered up a custom-built, acrylic brushed case packed with a water-cooled AMD Athlon 64 4000+, XFX 7800 GTX graphics cards and other trimmings. For $4321.49, ACC's Liquid XS more than does the job.