[H]ardNews 4th Edition - Video Card Edition

PowerColor X800 XL:

Hardware Zone takes this PCI-E with a newly tweaked BIOS for a short spin. Further they highly recommend this new BIOS in case you already have this card.

When PowerColor offered us a tweaked version of the BIOS for its RADEON X800 XL 512MB PCIe card, our initial thoughts were that PowerColor had probably overclocked its card by setting higher default operating frequencies for the card's core and memory in the new BIOS. After all, that seemed like the straightforward approach. As we had reviewed this card earlier and expressed our reservations about its high operating temperatures , we were rather skeptical about the extent of the performance gain from overclocking.

Workstation Comparison:

The Adrian's RojakPot has assembled a very handy workstation graphics card comparison guide. Most offerings from ATi, nVidia and Matrox are covered.

These days, there are so many workstation graphics card models that it has become quite impossible to keep up with the different configurations. Therefore, we decided to compile this comprehensive guide to over 70 workstation graphics cards.

Crucial X850 XT:

Hexus warms up the PCI-Express Platinum Edition. Putting it head to head with 5 other cards in class. But the lack of bundled games or a really good price point left them cold.

Crucial has been the latest board partner to throw its hat into the ring and market the X850 XT as the must-have performance video card. Crucial's well-regarded in the industry and its customer service is legendary. The question is, is this the X850 XT card to own. Let's find out.

Gigabyte 7800 GTX:

Bjorn3D examines the Gigabyte GV-NX78X256V and benchmarks it against the Reference GeForce 6800 GT.

The current hype and excitement over the 7800 GTX definitely is justified. The price seems to be too considering how many people are snatching them up. The performance gains offered by the Gigabyte 7800 GTX over the excellent 6800 GT make it worth every penny to hard core gamers. Even with just a single 7800 GTX, you can play games at detail levels that were previously unplayable (unless you like slide shows). Two 7800 GTX's in SLI are basically too powerful to be fully exploited by even the most powerful processors and systems available today.

BFG 7800 GTX OC:

Hot Hardware looks at the overclocked BFG version of the GeForce 7800.

Sporting a goosed up core GPU clock at 460MHz (30MHz faster than the NVIDIA reference design) and GDDR3 cranked up a notch to 1.3GHz (1.2GHz is the stock GF7800GTX spec), the card is a true testament to the fact that NVIDIA is perhaps holding back a bit, saving some extra juice to perhaps counter whatever ATi's next gen product brings to the fight. For now however, the spotlight is on NVIDIA, or shall we say BFG? Bringing in the "big guns" is what this new graphics card suggests it will allow you in your gameplay. Right then, let's lock and load.