Performance-Mainstream Graphics Cards

The sensation revealed when testing contemporary performance-mainstream graphics cards in the latest games is strange, but real: after being a year on the market, ATI RADEON X800 XL seems to be the most balanced performance-mainstream graphics card in terms of performance!

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS wins in Call of Duty 2 and the Serious Sam 2 benchmarks when compared to the RADEON X800 XL, but loses in Age of Empires 3 , F.E.A.R. , Quake 4 and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory . Battlefield 2 scores of the two boards are nearly equal.

ATI?s recently formally launched RADEON X1600 XT 256MB is a pretty strange product: it competes very well against the GeForce 6800, but at its price point of $249 it does not seem to be an appealing product, as for that amount of money customers can get a RADEON X800 XL or a GeForce 6800 GS. But if the price is right - $179 or $199 ?it may become a very fine mainstream graphics card.