The 6800 GS is a relatively recent release, designed to offer similar performance to the 6800 GT but at a lower price point.

In our 1280 x 1024 benchmarks, the Gigabyte 6800 GS card we tested achieved 33fps in Far Cry and 21fps in Call of Duty 2. As you’d expect, these dropped significantly when switching to 1600 x 1200 — we saw around 15fps in both. Compared to others, there isn’t much headroom for the future, but if you tone down the most intensive effects you’ll still enjoy your games.

Like the GT, the 6800 GS is fully SLI compatible, so if you already own one card it’s a convenient way of squeezing more from your existing hardware for less outlay than a high-end card (see SLI vs CrossFire on page 81). This package from Gigabyte also includes a component output adapter (the GS is the only 6800 series card capable of component output). There’s also Quake 4, one of the few truly notable bundled games this month.

But before you shell out on a 6800 GS, look at the 7600 GT. This is faster, packed with more features and cheaper than both the 6800 GS and GT, and thus renders them both obsolete.