ATI Radeon X1950 Pro

Pros: Okay price, internal crossfire connection, quiet.

Cons: Not DX10 compatible, large like most cards in this range.

Summary: ATI has done a good job of filling the niche for people like me. Their mid-level cards provide enough "oomph" without completely breaking the bank.

This card is a capable critter. It has the horsepower to get you through some quality sessions in most of the popular games on the market today. Should you want to take your system's capabilities up a notch, simply stick another one in your computer and fire up the crossfire (if you have a crossfire capable motherboard). Just watch out for the space. In my computer, I had to pull some acrobatic feats to get the power cable around to the back of the card, which was butting up against my hard drives.

My crossfire experience with this card was good, but I did not see the same performance gains like the reviewer did. It may be related to other components in my computer, though.

I think it's a great card that will hopefully be able to keep up as the market evolves with Vista and DirectX 10.

Specific models: HIS x1950Pro IceQ 3 Turbo