IN THE PAST FEW MONTHS, the graphics industry has become less interesting. 3dfx is out as a major player, having been consumed by NVIDIA, the company that can claim to be the undisputed champion in 3D right now. ATI is still in the mix, putting forth an excellent product in the Radeon (or RADEON, if you listen to them), but ATI´s Achilles´ heel continues to be weak drivers that fail to unleash the hardware´s true capabilities. What´s left is PowerVR, not a name you hear all that often, but don´t let that fool youthey do some very cool stuff.

On the workbench today is the Evil Kyro 64MB card from PowerColor. It sports PowerVR´s Kyro graphics chip and can be had for around $100. Has PowerVR finally come up with a compelling graphics chip for the PC? Is the Kyro able to run the competition? What´s all the fuss about Kyro anyway? Let´s find out.