The wait is finally over. After letting AMD own the next-generation video card market for months with its 5000-series cards, Nvidia has at last returned a salvo. Its ammo: two cards based on its new "Fermi" architecture, the GTX 470 and the GTX 480. These cards bring to Nvidia's family many similar technologies to those the new ATI Radeon HD cards enjoy: multimonitor support and DirectX 11 chief among them. There are even some special extras—multimonitor stereoscopic 3D!—thrown in as well.

With these cards, which Nvidia is announcing today and will be available for purchase the week of April 12, Nvidia would appear to be set to compete in the current state of the art. In the case of the GTX 480, the company even has bragging rights: That card does live up to many of Nvidia's boasts of its being the fastest single-GPU video card on the market. Whether it's worth the wait—or its $499 list price—is another, more difficult question.

For the on the the Nvidia GeForce GTX 480, check out Extremetech.com

For additional information on Graphics Cards and product reviews, please visit our Graphics Cards product guide.