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It is a good time to be in the market for a video card -- especially if you want to spend around $200. Both ATI's HD 3870 and NVIDIA's 8800 GT have been around for a few months now, and prices have reached new lows.

Even just six months ago, getting the level of performance that can be had with a HD 3870 or a 8800 GT for around $200 would have been hard to believe. And just last week, things got even more interesting with the introduction of NVIDIA's first 9th series card, the 9600 GT. Currently selling for around $180, the 9600 GT proved to be speedy card, despite having only 64 stream processors.

While the previous generation of mid-range cards left a bit to be desired when it came to performance -- especially in DX10 games -- that isn't the case this time around.

Today we will be looking at Gigabyte's twist on the HD 3870. This HD 3870 has a Zalman cooler on it, and Gigabyte's 'Ultra Durable 2' technology as well, which might help out with overclocking. We are going to test this HD 3870 against the primary competition around the $200 price point, including the 8800 GT 256MB/512MB, the 9600 GT, and not to mention the HD 3850 as well, in order to find out what might be the best route to go.

How will the Gigabyte HD 3870 fare in this competive market? We intend to find out.