We would like to thank the following companies for supplying and supporting us with our test system hardware and equipment: Intel, ASUS and Corsair.

Looking above you can see our testbed and there are no real surprises present so we'll just quickly get into the cards that will be included in our graph today.

We've of course got the Inno3D GTX 680 iChill Black Series Accelero Hybrid 4GB running at our overclocked speeds of 1214MHz on the core and 6560MHz QDR on the 4GB of GDDR5.

Along with that we've also got a reference clocked GTX 680 and a 4GB GTX 680 from Palit alongside a pre-overclocked GTX 680 from Gainward under the Phantom name.

On the AMD side of things we've got the reference clocked GHz Edition of the new HD 7970 and the pre-overclocked 6GB TOXIC version from Sapphire and an overclocked Vapor-X 4GB version also from Sapphire as we want to see just how this overclocked Inno3D GTX 680 can go against the overclocked GHz Edition HD 7970's.

Let's get started, this should be fun!

The FPS Numbers Explained

When we benchmark our video cards and look at the graphs, we aim to get to a certain level of FPS which we consider playable. While many may argue that the human eye can't see over 24 FPS or 30 FPS, any true gamer will tell you that as we climb higher in Frames Per Seconds (FPS), the overall gameplay feels smoother. There are three numbers we're looking out for when it comes to our benchmarks.

30 FPS - It's the minimum number we aim for when it comes to games. If you're not dropping below 30 FPS during games, you're going to have a nice and smooth gaming experience. The ideal situation is that even in a heavy fire fight, the minimum stays above 30 FPS making sure that you can continue to aim easily or turn the corner with no dramas.

60 FPS - It's the average we look for when we don't have a minimum coming at us. If we're getting an average of 60 FPS, we should have a minimum of 30 FPS or better and as mentioned above, it means we've got some smooth game play happening.

120 FPS - The new number that we've been hunting down over recent months. If you're the owner of a 120 Hz monitor, to get the most out of it you want to get around the 120 FPS mark. Moving from 60 FPS / 60 Hz to 120 FPS / 120 Hz brings with it a certain fluidity that can't really be explained, but instead has to be experienced. Of course, if you're buying a 120 Hz monitor to take advantage of 3D, an average of 120 FPS in our benchmark means that in 3D you will have an average of 60 FPS, which again means you should expect some smooth gameplay.