This is the first video card that I have awarded an Editor's Choice award on Motherboards.org. The card was fast in every benchmark and application that I threw at it including the DirectX 9.0 benchmarks and games I've tried. Top-notch performance for a mid-range card is excellent. Its intended competition (9600XT) is slower in the majority of benchmarks with DirectX 9.0 benchmarks being the exception.
The one great thing about this card is the included bundle of games and DVD player. Call Of Duty, Tomb Raider AOD, Arx Fatalis, Rainbow Six 3 Raven Shield and Call Of Duty make for a $150+ retail value, making the COO (Cost of Ownership) of this card very inexpensive when compared to other cards in this class. I love it when a manufacturer includes games that I actually would play (Arx Fatalis and Call Of Duty) and that look great on the card in question.
The one downside of this card is that things change rapidly in the computer graphics card world. The 5900XT was announced in December and NVIDIA has already announced the replacement for their high-end 5950 Ultra, the 6800 Ultra. What form NVIDIA's mainstream cards for this price point will take is anybody's guess. Buying a video card today may mean that you'll miss out on some performance on the mainstream replacement for the 5900XT (under $200 range) and features as well. But that's true of any computer component you purchase today.
The bottom line is this, this is the 2nd 5900XT review we've done here at Motherboards.org. While the MSI 5900XT performs just as well as the Gigabyte one, the bundle of the Gigabyte 5900XT with Call Of Duty is really outstanding. While some may question NVIDIA's driver tactics of the last year, this card stands out as a good performing video card for the intended competition. It's not often that I'm impressed with a mainstream video card but I am impressed with the overall presentation of the Gigabyte 5900XT.
