boring question but crucial about graphic cards

[XtremeMaC]

Hi there

yes as u guessed I'm going to ask which card to buy but this time I'll be buying it for sure bc the rally games that I'm buying won't work on my graphics card and I'm going crazy over here bc the demo's don't work

(colin mcrae rally 2005, richard burns rally) bc of the pixel shader crap.

anyways now my bugdet is limited to $200 (could go up to $250 if someone says that I really really really gotta get *that* card.)

I don't have pci express slot so its only agp 3.0 for me

I've always been a fan of nVidia.

now there are lots of brands and lots of cards and i've been looking all over the internet for larger and better comparison but as of yet I got more confused.

first comes the question which brand is better? is brand that important? (by brand I mean asus,pny, xfx, msi etc..) and lately ppl have been talking about a brand called BFG I dunno that??

asus has always been the most expensive one but I never had the chance to compare each brand 1 by 1 I want to get good performance on my games(of course) and won't be upgrading for a long while..

also other issue now there are cards like 128mb ati 9800xt and 256mb pro versions

so how would the increase in ram relate to performance in games?

then should I buy a nvidia chipset or ati chipset? if it was those days when nvidia came up with jet fan's and 2 pci slotted cards I'd go with ati but nowadays nvidia seems to keep up with ati,

SO these in mind help me pls

and sorry for posting in the wrong forum, the hardware forum doesn't seem to get enough hits to convince me, thanks for understanding

why am I picky about this graphics:

I always made the wrong decision about the graphics cards

started back when 3dfx was alive. I had always wanted a 3dfx card and I bought voodoo 5 5500 not knowing 3dfx was about to go down b4 the release of voodoo 5 6000. and not knowing that geforce 1 was to be released in a months time..

so pls pls help!!

thanks!!!

[prathapml]

MSI is good on both performance and quality - and value.

Opting for any card based on the nVidia GeForce FX5700 chipset would be the best decision to make at this point of time. Its not too under-performing, and priced well (so that you don't buy a high-end gfx card, and see your $200 cards turn up in shops for $80 - dropping price and your pride 3 months later).

[XtremeMaC]

thank u, will definitely look into that!!

[XtremeMaC]

heh all my confusion and questions just went to waste bin for a little while

the upcoming x700 chipsets are said to be around $200-$300.