S.TA.L.K.E.R. is a very demanding game graphically, but fortunately you can get good frame rates with the game with today's latest mainstream graphics cards. You can find GeForce 7600 GS cards for right around $100 at many online retailers, while PriceGrabber listings for the Radeon X1300 XT start under $100. Unfortunately neither of these cards were quite able to hit what we'd consider playable frame rates with dynamic lighting enabled, but with a few more tweaks to our config file and a little bit of overclocking (the 7600 GS can typically hit 7600 GT speeds especially with better cooling) we think frame rates in the 30 fps range would have been possible, especially at 1280x1024.

If you can afford to spend $150, the Radeon X1950 GT is pretty hard to beat at that price point for S.TA.L.K.E.R. The X1950 GT isn't quite as fast as its predecessor, the X1900 GT, but as we discussed in our Sapphire X1950 GT review, these cards are based on the exact same GPU used in the X1950 Pro, so it's not hard to get more performance out of these chips with a little bit of overclocking. In the US Sapphire is the only board partner bringing the X1950 GT to market at this point, while in Europe and Asia Palit and TUL are the sole card manufacturers. NVIDIA's GeForce 7900 GS also performs well, but at stock speeds it isn't quite as fast as the Radeon X1950 GT. A factory overclocked 7900 GS card would no doubt fare better in S.TA.L.K.E.R.

Moving higher up the price bracket, the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB and GeForce 7900 GTO really stand out. Unfortunately neither one of these cards can be found either online or at retail very easily anymore, they've basically been replaced by the Radeon X1950 XT 256MB and the GeForce 7950 GT. We don't have a Radeon X1950 XT 256MB for testing, but considering that the X1900 XT 256MB outperformed the GeForce 7950 GT, the X1950 XT 256MB should be the faster card. Of course, keep in mind that the GeForce 7950 GT we tested was running at stock speeds, and many of NVIDIA's board partners have chosen to overclock their 7950 GT cards from the factory for enhanced performance, so it's quite possible that one of these OC'ed 7950 GT boards could give the ATI card a run for its money.

Sitting alone at the very upper echelon of the mainstream graphics cards we tested is NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB. Clearly the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB is the fastest sub-$300 graphics card you can buy for S.TA.L.K.E.R. today; with the card delivering performance that was over 25% greater than the next closest competitor at 1600x1200. It really isn't even close. Besides performance, the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB has other intangibles going for it such as its added AA modes and low noise. It really is a great card for the gamer on a strict sub-$300 budget.