Mid-Range Graphics Card Warfare - AMD vs. nVidia (Q4 2006)

Introduction

Mid-range is clearly where the target market for both nVidia and ATI is when talking about graphics cards.

Today we have with us a total of four mid-range graphics cards - two from AMD and two from nVidia. While all cards are mid-range, it's clear that they sit at different end of the scales - let's call them low-end mid-range and high-end mid-range. The Radeon X1650XT and GeForce 7600GT sits at the lower end of the mid-range scale and at the other end we have the GeForce 7900GS and the Radeon X1950PRO. While offering high-end type performance, the 7900GS and X1950PRO still in belong at the mid-range level due to their pricing.

While we have had a look at most of the cards previously, we have never placed them all together and let them fight it out. Well, that is exactly what we are going to do today. Chuck all four in our test bed and benchmark them and see exactly where everything sits including the new Radeon X1650XT, which we haven't looked at before.

We will be having a brief look at the cards separated into an ATI and nVidia section. Then we will have a look at the test setup and get into our normal array of benchmarks. So let's not delay and see what we have with us.