Verdict: This is not the card you're looking for. Move along

The Connect3D is based on ATi's X700 Pro GPU and, technically speaking, it's pretty much identical to the Abit X700 card. Both have a 256MB frame buffer and they even run at the same clock speeds.

Unlike Abit, which took the braver choice of designing its own HSF, Connect3D has been less adventurous and opted for the reference ATi design. In this particular case, being unoriginal has paid off, as the ATi HSF is quiet.

Connect3D hasn't bothered to add heatsinks to the RAM chips, but this doesn't seem to matter, as we still overclocked the 256MB of GDDR3 from 432MHz to 515MHz (1.03GHz effective), which is slightly more than the Abit.

The Connect3D Radeon X700 Pro's performance is pretty much the same as that of all the other X700 Pro cards, which means it's fairly uninspiring. To be more precise, it's actually blown out of the water in almost every benchmark by the 6600 GT cards, which cost about the same. Unless you're an ATi fan boy who doesn't like to look common sense in the face, there doesn't appear to be a valid reason why you'd buy this card.

At least the Connect3D has 256MB of RAM, which means its performance is better than the 128MB Sapphire X700 Pro Toxic. This is most obvious in Far Cry, where the Connect3D was more than 50 per cent faster than the 128MB Sapphire card. However, a typical 6600 GT card, which also has 128MB of memory, is still a good 4fps faster, suggesting that it makes far more efficient use of its memory.

If you bought this Connect3D via mail order, you might wonder if you'd been sent the wrong package when it arrived. There are no bundled extras at all. Taking this into account, and the fact it uses the basic reference cooler, we'd expect the Connect3D to be at least £15 cheaper than the Abit card, but it's actually more expensive!

If, for some crazy reason, you decided that you wanted to buy an X700 Pro, the Connect3D would still be a better choice than the Abit, simply because it's much quieter. But quite frankly you'd have to be an utter loon to want to buy either card.

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