Video cards have evolved exponentially over the last few years. It's hard to imagine that it was merely 5 years ago that 3DFX, the founder of the modern 3D graphics card, was bought up by NVIDIA. It's harder to imagine in my way of thinking that the best video card of 2000, the Geforce 2 GTS would be considered less noteworthy than the lowest integrated video card chipset available today. What would be considered the lowest performing card available today would have been the highest end card back in 2000.
ATI has been making video cards for over 20 years. They recently celebrated their 25th birthday. Recently they've been in a bit of a quandary with issues delaying their next-generation architecture, the RADEON X1K series. One side benefit of the delay has been the repositioning of the performance and value parts to launch at the same time as the high-end video card, the RADEON X1800. The value part of the equation is called the X1300, and it comes in two configurations the X1300 Pro and x1300XT. Today, ATI is launching their last video card of 2005, the A-I-W version of the x1300XT. Let's take a look at what it has to offer and see if it warrants your hard earned dollars.
