Conclusion:

These are two very nice cards, and two very fast cards at that. Both have reasonable bundles and good build quality. The Hercules has the edge on looks with its stylish led fan and copper cooler however if we look at the overall winner for each test the PNY card wins four and the Hercules wins four. The FX shines at the DirectX8 games such as UT 2003 and Splinter Cell however in games with newer DirectX9 engines the Hercules card pulls ahead and in TRAOD the difference is quite startling in favour of the Hercules. On a price/performance issue a bit of searching shows the PNY card available for about £300 and the Hercules for about £220. If the prices change enough with the release of the new FX and Radeon parts, or either company releases newer drivers which improve performance significantly then deciding between the two will become much harder.

If you had to choose between the two cards at this time then the DirectX9 performance would, in our opinion, be the deciding factor. After all, future games is the reason you spend £200+ on a piece of graphics hardware.