Price: $US 124 (street)

Available: Now

Website: www.ati.com

Although games take today's fastest graphics accelerators to their threshold, frames per second are not important to everyone. In fact, for those whose computer systems are strictly for business use, gaming might be classified as an adventurous tryst with Solitaire in between financial reports. Features like 2D quality, multi-monitor support, and connectivity mean much more to these folks than any number of pixel pipelines or gigatexels per second of theoretical fillrate.

Since this market is somewhat divergent from the primary focus of companies like NVIDIA and the now-defunct 3dfx, the gaming underdogs have been allowed to dominate. Matrox has traditionally held the crown thanks to pristine 2D clarity and flexible multi-monitor support. ATI has also been an important player thanks to a wide range of value-based accelerators. Unfortunately, ATI's low-cost line suffered from a bad case of mediocrity, and the only compelling argument supporting them was price.

With the release of the RADEON GPU, ATI was able to break free from a damaging stigma - mainly, they could not compete in the high-end graphics market. In successive iterations of their high-end chip, ATI has been able to penetrate other markets, molding the RADEON to maximize both price and performance. Now, after releasing boards with both Single Data Rate and Double Data Rate SDRAM at several different price points, ATI has their sights set on the user base focused on productivity, where time is money. Let's face it; seamless functionality can mean the difference between the day trader with a realized gain or the enthusiast who always seems to be a day late and a dollar short.

Based largely on the same design of the Mobility RADEON that we unveiled earlier in the month, the new RADEON VE brings a host of connectivity features to the table in addition to some innovative software that may very well change the way you do business.