ATI today officially announced the new Radeon X1950 Pro graphics card:

Available and shipping today with an estimated street price of US$199 or EUR199 (VAT included), the Radeon X1950 Pro bests competing offerings at the same price in both single-card and dual-card configurations. The Radeon X1950 Pro is the first graphics card to make use of new native CrossFire technology, simplifying the multi-GPU experience by eliminating the need for a branded CrossFire Edition card. Using CrossFire bridge interconnect cables that attach directly to the cards, installation is easy and gamers get a clean, elegant look. Native CrossFire technology also delivers the same high-performance multi-GPU gaming experience CrossFire is known for, enabling high resolutions and refresh rates. The new CrossFire technology works on the same broad range of Intel and AMD platforms that cable CrossFire technology supports, including AMD socket 939 and AM2 motherboards, and Intel 975X and P965 motherboards.

Sounds nice, doesn't it? But is the Radeon X1950 Pro's formula sufficient to challenge the excellent GeForce 7900 GS at $199? The first reviews can be found on EliteBastards, HotHardware, OCWorkBench, OverClock3D, TechReport.

TechReport: Just a month ago, when we reviewed the Radeon X1900 GT, I said that the GT's performance was "virtually on par with the GeForce 7900 GS" and that "You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two in day-to-day use." I thought the ATI card had better image quality but suffered from poor CrossFire options. The X1900 GT also drew more power than the GeForce 7900 GS and cost a little more. Now, with the Radeon X1950 Pro, we have the same basic performance and image quality as the Radeon X1900 GT, but it comes with lower power draw, lower noise levels while gaming, and a much improved CrossFire scheme that works almost exactly like SLI. And the Radeon X1950 Pro now matches the GeForce 7900 GS's $199 price tag.

If forced choose between the Radeon X1950 Pro and the GeForce 7900 GS, I'd distract you by pointing to the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB selling at Newegg for $259. Forking over the additional 59 bucks is probably worth it, given that card's outstanding performance. You've got to be willing to give up native CrossFire and an adjacent slot in your system, but for most of us, that's probably worth it.

Pinned down and forced to choose strictly between the Radeon X1950 Pro and the GeForce 7900 GS, I'd most likely pick the Radeon X1950 Pro for use in my own system. Nvidia's iffy texture filtering becomes really bothersome in games like Oblivion and Guild Wars, and since the X1950 Pro only pulls about 15W more under load than the 7900 GS, why not grab it instead? Also, we've been down this road half a dozen times in the past month, but it bears repeating that the Radeon X1000 series has some feature advantages that translate into better image quality than what Nvidia's G71 can offer, including smarter, more flexible antialiasing and angle-independent anisotropic filtering. The possibility of running two cards in SLI or CrossFire serves to focus more attention on those image quality issues, too, because a dual-GPU config leaves plentiful headroom for advanced filtering and AA.