Ben just curious, does your PSU have a PCI-E connector? Make sure you do before getting a card that requires one. If you don't have one then you will need one of these....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812201004

Make sure you have a spare molex power connector to use that though.

Benkobi, check out this article by THG, they usually do a real good job evaluating video card price/performance for everyones budget.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/06/the_best_gaming_video_cards_for_the_money/

If youre going to game a lot on your PC I really think you should stretch your budget to a ATI 1950XT or even GeForce 8800GTS 320MB if you can afford it.
You will be much happier than compromising with lower end cards like Radeon 2600 and 8600s. Those two are DX10 cards but perform worse than DX9 1950XT.

ALso what games and what resolutions are you going to run at?

 LOL... damn straight and you should LISTEN FOR I AM.... the OriGin...




/ end lame

Yeah, that's the angle I was takin :P

I totally agree with OriGin about the 8800GTS 320MB. GeForce owns all! I've worked with computers for years, and I HATE the ATI Drivers. The hardware isn't bad, but their software has always been lacking in performance and buggy. GeForce Forceware drivers are the best in the biz and their hardware is great as well.

I actually agree with origin here, I think the 8800GTS 320MB is one of the best bangs for your buck you can get right now.  If you can afford it I would advise you to seriously consider spending the extra cash.  You can get one with the rebates and mail-in rebates for about $250 right now and it will serve you well for quite a bit longer than a card you will pay $150 for.

Obviously sometimes budgets are steadfast and if that is the case for you then I would say don't worry about it, but for anyone with the means, do yourself the favor. 

It's very tempting...but the 8800 GTS that costs $160 is that much worse?

Well, it performs slightly worse than a Radeon X1950 in DX9... 'slightly' when you don't crank up the resolution and AA, of course.

And don't expect to get optimal performance on D3D10 from a GF8600 or Rad2600... if you really want D3D10, get any GeForce 8800 or Radeon 2900.

ATM, the GeForce 8800 is the best bang for your buck, as I expect it to get decent-to-good D3D10 performance and superior DX9 performance too. 

Hoooly shit, I never said 320 mb was bad, I said I needed the 640 meg more for my rig. It's true that the 320mb is about 30% cheaper, isn't it? There we go.

Can I point out that all DX10 games now and for the foreseeable future have a DX9 render path that is extremely similar and often better performing due to the fact that around 5% of people who use Steam (i.e. only 5% of the PC hardcore gamer community) have a DX10 card + Vista.

Plus DX10.1 (in pre-beta now) is incompatible with all current DX10 cards.

So.... X1950PRO 256MB. Newegg is $149.99 and up.

You don't need an 8800. All current games can be put on high quality at good frame rates with X1950 PRO.