all 3 choices are exceptionally fast cards my friend for the price and latest affordable cards. but if i had a choice, i would pick prize number 3. why you say? simple: look at both core clock (600MHz) and memory clock (1600MHz). the price of $200.00 is also great.

also, i picked number 3 without any research. just reading specs only. as a noob would do. ha!

good luck with your pick. oh by the way, i'm a cheap bastid and bought myself this card.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2427578&sku=P450-7870

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"I won't eat anything that has intelligent life, but I'd gladly eat a network executive or a politician." ---------- Asus P5KC M0b0,Q6600 CPU, Artic Cooler Freeze Pro7 H/F,OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666 RAM, Barricuda 7200.11 3Gb/s HD, nVidia 9800GTX+BE, Seitek Keyboard/Optical Mouse, HEC Zephyr 750W PSU, Raidmax Aztec Case, WINXP32BIT

i totally read ya' alex31391x. i spent nearly four months researching different types of video cards. in the end, i purchased the xfx geforce 7600 gt. i agree with you, video cards are constantly in the making and to keep up with the industry, it can cost a lot. gosh! can you imagine buying a card every 6-12 months? man!

i'm a hardcore gamer and i can tell you that i am very happy with the current card i have. yeah, some stutter, hiccups, etc. here and there but i'm at the point where no matter what card you get you'll encounter some type of lag, hiccup, etc.

one of my buds has the new voodoo card for his mac and he's disappointed that after paying so much for the card, he still experiences issues here and there during multiplayer mode. i tell him that it's his ISP (comcast) to calm him down. HA!

anyway, so i'm certain that whatever 7900 series you buy, you won't be disappointed.

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"I won't eat anything that has intelligent life, but I'd gladly eat a network executive or a politician." ---------- Asus P5KC M0b0,Q6600 CPU, Artic Cooler Freeze Pro7 H/F,OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666 RAM, Barricuda 7200.11 3Gb/s HD, nVidia 9800GTX+BE, Seitek Keyboard/Optical Mouse, HEC Zephyr 750W PSU, Raidmax Aztec Case, WINXP32BIT

No, you can Google "Cooling Graphics card" and get a bunch of different sites and ideas. Most will involve fans and use air cooling which you would likely want though if you do want to get the big meaty stuff there is liquid cooling that some use for keeping their graphics card cool.

Regards,
JB

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Home Desktop: VoodooPC Hexx. AMD Athlon FX-60, 2 GB RAM, 2 x 250 GB HD, 7900 GTX video card. Home Laptop: HP dv4000, Pentium M, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB HD, ATi 700 Radeon Mobility

Most of the features should be the same I'd think. Take a look at http://www.xfxforce.com/web/product/listConfigurations.jspa?seriesId=185563&productId=638284 for the XFX's site and notice the feature lists:

For the 7950 GT:
"SLI ready , HDTV ready , Dual DVI Out"

For the 7950GT Extreme Edition:
"Dual DVI Out , TV Out , HDTV ready , SLI ready"

So the "TV Out" is a feature on the one and not the other. There is also the "View Product Specification" links should you want to dig deeper.

Regards,
JB

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Home Desktop: VoodooPC Hexx. AMD Athlon FX-60, 2 GB RAM, 2 x 250 GB HD, 7900 GTX video card. Home Laptop: HP dv4000, Pentium M, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB HD, ATi 700 Radeon Mobility