Verdict: The X1950XT and Pro are still worth considering, providing you don't care about DirectX 10.

Even while Nvidia and ATi were plotting their strategies for DirectX 10 domination, they were still busy churning out DirectX 9 GPUs and trying to outdo each other. Nvidia's last throw of the DirectX 9 die was the crafty GeForce 7950 GX2, a dual-GPU card that employed SLI. ATi's DirectX 9 swan song was the Radeon X1950XTX; compared with Nvidia's rather elegant solution, this was a brute-force strategy of basically creating a fast GPU and partnering it with crazy-fast memory.

Equipped with 48 pixel processors, eight vertex pipes, 16 texture processors and 16 ROPs, the X1950XTX may seem, on paper, to share the same GPU architecture as the X1900XTX, even down to an identical 650MHz clock speed. Under the hood, though, the X1950XTX is based on a redesigned and more power-efficient chip. The X1950XTX GPU runs cooler, and is therefore cooled by a quieter reference heatsink and fan than the X1900XTX. In addition to a subtly tweaked GPU, the X1950XTX is also the first graphics card with GDDR4 memory. The X1950XTX's 512MB of GDDR4 runs at 1GHz (2GHz effective), as opposed to the 775MHz (1.55GHz effective) GDDR3 RAM found on the X1900XTX.

It's a shame, therefore, that the X1950XTX doesn't significantly outperform the X1900XTX. Granted, the X1950XTX offers more speed than any other DirectX 9 Radeon, but the difference between the two XTX cards is never more than a few frames per second. More disappointing is the fact that, unlike the GeForce 7950 GX2, the X1950XTX is unable to play any of our test games at 1,920 x 1,200 without the frame rate falling below playable levels. The killer blow for the X1950XTX, however, is the fact that it's still very expensive, which is probably due to the use of GDDR4 memory. The average price for an X1950XTX is £250; for the same price, you could buy a significantly faster 640MB GeForce 8800 GTS or ATi's very own Radeon HD 2900XT.

Thankfully, the X1950XT is a very different prospect. Fitted with cheaper GDDR3 memory, the X1950XT has dropped to a temptingly low £140, and goes head to head with Nvidia's much less impressive GeForce 8600 GTS. The X1950XT has an identical GPU to that of the XTX, and boasts very similar clock speeds, with a GPU speed of 625MHz and a memory speed of 900MHz (1.8GHz effective).

The X1950XT is powerful enough to provide a playable frame rate in both our Need for Speed and F.E.A.R. tests at 1,680 x 1,050, although S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was only playable at 1,024 x 768. Even so, the X1950XT was significantly faster than the 8600 GTS in every game we tested, so if your budget won't stretch to a 320MB GeForce 8800 GTS then, for only £140, the X1950XT is a bargain - if you don't mind being restricted to DirectX 9 effects, of course.

Finally, while the X1950 Pro may have a similar name to that of its older siblings, it's based on a slightly different architecture. Unlike both the X1950XT and X1950XTX, which are based on a 90nm fabrication process, the X1900 Pro is based on a more modern 80nm fabrication process, which is the smallest manufacturing process yet used for a GPU. As well as this, the X1950 Pro also has slightly more modest specifications. The X1950 Pro has 36 pixel processors, 12 fewer than the XT, and although the card has the same number of vertex pipes, it has only 12 texture processors and 12 ROPs. This, combined with the X1950 Pro's modest 580MHz GPU clock speed and relatively timid 256MB of 700MHz (1.4GHz effective) memory, means that the card provides significantly less performance than others in the series.

However, the X1950 Pro offers better performance than its closest Nvidia rival, the 8600 GTS, in terms of price; the X1950 Pro managed to play F.E.A.R. comfortably at 1,680 x 1,050, with a smooth minimum frame rate of 29fps, while the 8600 GTS didn't quite make it, with a stuttery minimum of 23fps. This means that if you have only £100 to spend and don't plan on upgrading to Vista and playing DirectX 10 games any time soon, the X1950 Pro is the obvious choice.

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• OCZ Core Series 30GB - Hard disks / storage
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