Web Site: www.ati.com

Price: $279

As one of the most tumultuous markets of the technology industry, the video card arena sees performance leaders come and go regularly. To last more than two generations with a speed title, as NVIDIA and 3dfx have done, is quite an impressive feat. It is no wonder then, that these two companies are traditionally viewed as the high-end leaders, pioneers in the field and forces to be reckoned with.

ATI, on the other hand, has basked in high revenues, but never controlled the direction of the market through 3D performance innovation. Even the Rage Fury MAXX, their recent dual-chip contribution, was unable to offer enough performance gain to fully justify its lofty price. After ATI announced their RADEON chip back in April, the hardware community shrugged it off as another product we would see a day late and dollar overpriced.

It was to our surprise and delight when the 64MB RADEON board landed in our lab early. We promptly explored the performance and exposed the technology behind the card in the RADEON 64MB DDR Guide.

There were a few points left uncovered though, and one of them was that ATI is already shipping two versions of the RADEON. One is the 64MB card, clocked at 183/183MHz and retailing for a staggering $399US, and the other is a more conservative 32MB variant, running at 166/166MHz and more aggressively priced at $279. After getting over the initial euphoria brought on by the 32-bit performance of the 64MB RADEON, we conceded that $399 is quite a bit more than most of us have just lying around.

The only option left was to pick up a 32MB RADEON, which we tested as rigorously as its pricey sibling. In addition, we have added 32 & 64MB GeForce2 scores, compared synchronous and asynchronous overclocking, and delved even further into ATI's HyperZ technology.