If you are looking for more performance than that, the GeForce GTX 280 looks to be a good option now and we¡¦d dare say it¡¦s a better option than the Radeon HD 4850 X2, especially as a stock GTX 280 is a good ¢G50 cheaper. Admittedly there are times when the 4870 X2 will completely blitz the GTX 280, but there are just as many examples where the dual-GPU behemoth will suffer from performance inconsistencies like those we saw in our Far Cry 2 DirectX 9.0 tests thanks to unoptimised drivers or engine limitations. The bad news is that official driver support from AMD isn¡¦t coming until January, so 4870 X2 owners may well feel a little let down by AMD's drivers here.

The other interesting thing we¡¦ve learned from our new testing is that the GeForce 9800 GTX+ is now a much more compelling option compared to the Radeon HD 4850. OK, so it¡¦s not as clear cut as, say, choosing the 4870 1GB over either the 4870 512MB or GeForce GTX 260+ and there are times when the 4850 is quite a lot faster than the 9800 GTX+, but there are now some scenarios where the 9800 GTX+ is notably faster ¡V we just couldn¡¦t say that just a few short months ago.

Looking at both Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 shows that Nvidia is now offering at least comparable, if not better performance than the competition from AMD in the latest titles. I¡¦m sure AMD has its own optimisations to do in these games as well, but things are looking a lot more promising for Nvidia at the moment.

A driver update can't turn the world upside down though and AMD still holds a clear performance lead with the Radeon HD 4870 X2 when the drivers and game engine allow ¡V that¡¦s unlikely to change any time soon as well, based on what we¡¦ve been hearing. In short then, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is still the card we'd spend our own money on at the moment, but the playing field isn¡¦t quite as clear elsewhere as it used to be V that's a good thing for consumers though, as there¡¦s now not really a bad buy in sight any more.