Product Reviews

This is Gigabyte's graphics card based on ATI's good-value X1950 Pro chip.

The biggest innovation is that Gigabyte has used Zalman's VF700 silent cooler. The large heatsink and fan mean you'll need two free slots in your PC's case, so it's not suitable for small computers, but it is silent. It's less bulky than PowerColor's X1950 Pro, which uses a huge Artic Cooling fan that bulges

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out the side of the card. Otherwise, it's business as usual. The card has the same 600MHz core speed and 256MB of GDDR3 memory running at 700MHz (1.4GHz effective) as PowerColor's card. It also has 36 pixel pipelines.

Performance was similar, too, although the GV-RX195P256D-RH was slightly quicker in every test except Doom 3. While we test at a resolution of 1,280x1,024 we also increased our Call of Duty test to 1,600x1,200. Its score of 36.6fps is excellent. Should you want even more performance in the future, you can add a second X1950 Pro in CrossFire mode. The card uses the new internal CrossFire connector, so you don't need the untidy mess of cables hanging out the back of your PC or a master card, as with the older version of this technology.

The GV-RX195P256D-RH is available for just £137 including VAT, almost £20 cheaper than PowerColor's card. If you want high-end gaming but don't have a lot of money, this graphics card is remarkable value.