Up until this morning though, we'd have agreed with that because the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 1GB was selling for over £220 - it's hard to justify what amounts to a five percent performance improvement and a fancy cooler when the reference one isn't exactly disappointing. But with the price being realigned to just under £195, we think it's worth taking the punt if you've decided that the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is the right choice for you.

What makes the choice difficult is that the Radeon HD 4870 1GB and GeForce GTX 260-216 are incredibly well matched not only on price, but also on performance across the board. Right now, the favour seems to have tipped AMD's way, but it could quite easily flip the other way when you consider that of the five benchmarks the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic won against the GeForce GTX 260-216, two of them were by less than five percent. What's more, it's quite conceivable that some of the newer titles that we'll be adding to our suite soon could go either way - neither the Radeon HD 4870 1GB nor GeForce GTX 260-216 are a bad choice at this price point, frankly.