Over the last year or so the video card market has changed dramatically.  With both ATI and NVIDIA offering high-end cards and multiple card solutions, it really can be tough to decide how to best spend your hard earned gaming dollar.  The recent arrival of Abit's outstanding AW8D motherboard got us wondering how best to approach an ATI gaming solution to maximize our performance without breaking the bank.  For a little extra help, we contacted David Makin, a competitive gamer  and Connect 3D's resident ATI expert to get some professional advice.  You may be surprised at what he suggested!

     Here at Club Overclocker we pride our selves in bringing you the latest in high-end video performance so naturally when it comes to ATI we are all about the X1900 series.  Who wouldn't want to power up a shiny new Connect3D X1900XTX card and really push the AW8D to it's maximum.  When we suggested a X1900XTX as our card of choice to David his response was sobering to say the least!

     David suggested that with a Crossfire board like the AW8D at our disposal we would probably get a bit more bang for our buck with a set of Connect3D X1600XT cards running in a Crossfire setup.  In fact, David even suggested that a couple of X1600XT cards would probably be able to take that X1900XTX with a little overclocking, and do it for over $100 less!

     Never one to back down from a challenge, especially one that includes a little overclocking, we told David to put his money where his mouth is!  Before you know it we are looking at a set of shiny new Connect3D X1600XT cards and our choice; a brawny new Connect3D X1900XTX.

     Here at the club, we have already had the Connect3D X1600XT under the microscope. Back in May Michael found a single X1600XT to be a solid general purpose card that could handle most current games.  We gave it a 9 after pushing it to the limits on an ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe.