right now the graphics card world is a bit strange....
you got the Radeon 9800 with again ATI's natoriously buggy drivers...their still buggy/unstable although not nearly as bad as they used to be...(alot of people will deny this and say it works fine for what they do..but the sad fact is the cards buggy with straight OpenGL tasks, in Lightwave for example if you run Blade.lws and make a preview it'll be slower then a geforce3 or even a 2ultra)
you got the FX cards from Nvidia...their very hot...their very buggy in the driver department aswell...but you can count on the drivers getting better... because nvidia cares about its drivers unlike ati
you have the GeForce4 TI series cards... great price, good performance in all modern games, and the drivers are solid as a rock...
I myself right now...things bieng what they are I'd go with a GeForce4 ... its cheaper... it'll do the same job just as well with what we have 'NOW" and by the time it wont you'll be able to get something more stable and higher performing then the either ATI or Nvidia's current 'top-end' offerings...
It really depends what you do though... if you play alot of games every day and dont care about real OpenGL support or possible driver issues with certin chipsets.... you can get a Radeon 9800 and have fun... "right now" I could say the same for the FX but Nvidia bieng who they are they will undoubtedly change this with future drivers..if you want decent/good performance at a price that will leave ya with some cash for the future I'd snag a Ti4400/4600 or 4800 GeForce4 ... their the best bang for the buck right now and their a good 'all around' card not just gaming... and not just windows... their pretty solid 3D performers for application 3D... etc etc etc..
