Choosing which graphics card is right for you comes down to how much you want to panic your bank manager, really. You can either go for a higher end card and splash out the two hundred plus notes, or think a little more sensibly.

For those willing to spend, the Creative, Radeon and Voodoo cards are the choices. If what you're after is the fastest frame rates in 3D games, like Quake III Arena which was our benchmark game in this group test, then the best choice is the Creative Geforce 2 GTS.

It must be said that the Radeon is very much a force to be reckoned with though. It's slightly cheaper and offers great all round performance, including frame rates that come close to the Creative card. If you're not a total 3D shooter frame rate-counting nut it's a better choice than the Creative board.

Finally, the Voodoo 5 5500 is capable of producing some fantastically clear 3D graphics using its FSAA, which is superior to Nvidia's own in our opinion. It's a shame that the frame rates let it slip a little. If you have a powerful system which can cope with running the FSAA then your games won't look better with any other card.

While it may be a cut-down board, the 3D Prophet II MX is an excellent buy, and as long as you don't push the resolution too high it handles things really well. For the money, this is a great upgrade for those who have an older, under-performing AGP graphics card. In terms of power per pound it's the winner here.

For those still running PCI based video systems, the Pine Vanta card is certainly worth thinking about. It ran Quake III Arena well enough on our test system at 640 x 480 and it's very cheaply priced. However, to run today's cutting edge games at 800 x 600 or above, you're really looking at a more serious, expensive upgrade.