Introduction
We've seen NVIDIA launch its impressive GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card to widespread acclaim. It's fair to say that NVIDIA has a resounding triumph with G80 but, and it's an important but, entry into the G80 club starts off with the 8800 GTS SKU, retailing at around the £350 mark. So as good as GeForce 8800 is, it's only viable to those with lots of notes to spend.
Moving on down the financial scale to a more palatable £125, we find that both NVIDIA and ATI have compelling PCIe offerings in the form of GeForce 7900 GS and Radeon X1950 Pro, respectively. Both are based on high-end designs and, for once, pricing coincides to make direct comparison a reasonably easy affair.
We took a look at Sapphire's Radeon X1950 Pro a short while ago. Now it's the turn of two partners from the green team, so step forward XFX's GeForce 7900 GS Extreme Edition 256MiB and Inno3D's GeForce 7900 GS Zalman 256MiB. Which is better? Is either worth purchasing? Is ATI's X1950 Pro the better choice? We'll answer these questions in our head-to-head review so read on.
