SO YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT plunking down somewhere north of five hundred bucks on a graphics card, but can't decide which one to get? It's a fantastic problem to have, and it gets simpler when you consider the GPU picture. NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GTX graphics processor reigns supreme at the high end of the consumer graphics market, thanks to newer technology and stellar performance. We've already established the GeForce 7800 GTX's credentials in our epic review of the GPU. If you're looking to pad your bragging rights, there's no question at present about which GPU to get. The only questions are: Which brand of card should I buy, and how many?

With an eye toward answering these pivotal questions, and another eye on the chance to play around with some really fast graphics cards, we've corralled GeForce 7800 GTX cards from BFG Tech, MSI, and XFX to see what they have to offer. In fact, we even have a matched pair of cards from MSI for some multi-GPU action.

It's a tough job, this computer hardware reviewing business, but somebody has to do it.

It turns out that that each of these cards has its own distinct set of plusses and minuses, despite the fact that they're all rather similar. Your own pick will probably be determined by what you value you most in a graphics card. Read along, and I'll show you what I mean.