The Gigabyte X800 offering is a strange beast. The accompanying package proclaimed it was a X800 XT PE (Platinum Edition), but further investigation found it to be a standard X800 XT.

Anyone with $400 to spend on a graphics card should currently be looking at a RADEON X800 XL. It boasts the same 16 pipelines as an X800 XT, and also packs 256MB of GDDR3 memory to boot.

The X800XT PE is ATI's flagship technology, and its main change over the standard X800 XT is a core frequency increase from 500MHz to 520MHz, and a memory increase from 500MHz to 560MHz. Consequently, it performs better than the standard X800 XT's, topping all the benchmarks and achieving a phenomenal 26588 marks in 3DMark01 in 1024 x 768.

This card was the second poorest performing X800 XT on show in 3DMark01SE's DirectX 8 tests, with roughly 400 3Dmarks between it and the Gigabyte RX80X256V. But DX8 testing certainly isn't everything these days, and ABIT's card put in a good showing to take fourth in the DirectX 9.0-based 3DMark05, putting it on par with the Labs winning PowerColor X800 XT and GeCube card.

Looking to build your dream machine? We explore the latest components on the market, and give you advice on which ones to hunt down, along with the general price you can expect to pay for each major component.

Like the MSI X800XT-VTD256E, Sapphire's offering represents bang on average performance. But, unlike MSI, this doesn't offer the feature set to offset the higher price.

An old PC is like putty in your hands. Tim Dean looks at how you can shape it into a new system with a few easy upgrades.

MSI's X800 XT finished finished up a bit over average. It's performance was relatively solid, and it held a commanding position in the synthetic benchmarks, placing third and fifth in the 3DMark tests.

NVIDIA has been criticised for its oversized graphics cards, but the shoe is on the other foot this time with HIS putting a truly massive cooler on its X800 XT card.

The GeCube is a good performer -- of the standard X800 XT's it produced the highest 3DMark05 score of 1024 x 768. Most current games require full DirectX 9.0 support to be played at their best, so a good 3DMark05 score means this willhandle the newest games -- at least until DirectX 10 appears.

With the X800's and 6800's hogging limelight, a new battle has begun for affordable, mid-performance cards -- the 6600GT's versus the X700's -- and ASUS has stepped up to the plate with its Extreme AX700Pro.

FIC's Condor has answered the call this month, offering gamers an easy to upgrade system, wrapped up in a one of the most innovative cases we've seen.

Unfortunately, Sparkle's 6800GT was the only card available for this Labs, and we can't compare this apples to apples with the rest of the cards in the pack. But, we couldn't let it go untested so we compared this to the rest of the field for each benchmark, which gives an indication of its advantage over the other cards through both synthetic and real-world tests.

If you only play one game in 2006, make it Oblivion.

The Pioneer DreamBook Power 900 is a locally built monster – this isn’t a desktop replacement, it’s a desk.

When we sent out the call for multimedia systems we were expecting notebooks and PCs capable of DVD playback and some basic gaming. Pioneer not only cleared this bar with their submission - they raised it.

They're not common yet, but dual SIM smartphones could be all the rage for overseas travellers one day.

The Toshiba Satellite P30 is a 17-inch behemoth with a price tag to match.

One of the most striking things about Pioneer’s entry this month is the cosmetics: it’s 24hr karaoke bar meets street-racing BMW. And lots of blue LEDs! And these LED’s can get a little annoying – especially the super bright “headlight” LED’s. They shine directly ahead, and at desk height they beam straight into your eyes. There is also a large, illuminated ‘Xfinity’ etched into the front door of the case. Suffice to say this case won’t be to everyone’s taste. But otherwise, the rest of the externals are OK – the top mount houses two of the six total USB ports beneath a tidy flap, and a large power button with a good action.