Verdict: You'd have to spend £200 to get something significantly better.

When Nvidia released the 7950 GX2 to replace the 7900 GTX as Nvidia's flagship card, and replaced the 7900 GT with the 7900 GS as the more budget-friendly alternative, it created a gap for a mid/high-end product, which Nvidia filled with the 7950 GT.

The 7950 GT has 24 pixel and texture processors, and 16 ROPs, so its GPU has an identical architecture to that of the 7900 GTX. What has changed are the clock speeds. The 7950 GT's GPU runs at only 550MHz, 100MHz slower than that of the 7900 GTX, and its 512MB of GDDR3 memory runs at just 715MHz (1.43GHz effective), again somewhat slower than that of the 7900 GTX.

This doesn't affect the frame rates too drastically though. In F.E.A.R. at 1,680 x 1,050 with 2x AA and 8x AF, both cards provide perfectly playable frame rates, with the 7950 GT achieving a minimum of 34fps, and the older 7900 GTX scoring 39fps. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. proved to be more of a challenge, with the 7950 GT justifying its now budget-friendly price tag with a poor showing; even at 1,280 x 1,024 with AA and AF enabled, the card failed to achieve a playable 25fps minimum frame rate.

At £115, the 7950 GT falls between the £100 X1950 Pro and the £140 X1950XT, so choosing whether to take the ATi or Nvidia route depends on which games you play. The 7950 GT comes out on top in S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but in both Need for Speed: Carbon and F.E.A.R., the X1950XT proves that it's generally a more powerful card, while the X1950 Pro never managed to outperform the 7950 GT.

This means that if you already own a 7950 GT, there's little point in upgrading to a more modern mid-range card at the moment. The high-end 8800 GTS 320MB stands out as the only obvious upgrade and, if you can't afford it just now, you'd do well to wait for it to come down in price. However, if you're upgrading from a less powerful card and are on a tight budget, the Radeon X1950XT still stands out as the best mid-range card.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

• OCZ Core Series 30GB - Hard disks / storage
• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - Hard disks / storage
• Asus EAH4870 TOP - Graphics cards
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro - Sound cards
• Multiwinia - Games
• Zotac GeForce GTX 260² - Graphics cards
• Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 - Graphics cards