---

Originally posted by Loke666
www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-cards-charts-2009-high-quality/Sum-of-FPS-Benchmarks-1920x1200,1473.html
Check this test, buy the best card you think you afford.
As for the ATI vs  Nvidia I reccomend Nvidia. Until ATI releases the next gen card this winter they have nothing in the same class as the Nvidia cards.
But use the benchmark test to decide, not just the word of me or anyone else. Toms tests are reliable and actual numbers are always better to go on than a feeling or a loyalty to a brand.

---

I actually find tomshardware's Best of the Month section more useful than the charts:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2387.html
And this value comparison chart at xbitlabs if you can decipher it lol:
http://xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/mainstream-roundup-2_22.html#sect0

The charts are really weird and don't match toms other reviews on the same cards, and the Sum of Benchmarks adds in all the lower settings you wouldn't play at with the higher settings you would, giving you a skewed result.

Toms Hardware tests are actually a bit biased.  All of the games they choose for their 2009 benchmarks heavily favor nVidia architecture.  When it comes to architecture, ATI right now has the better one.  However, game engines won't use its architecture until this generation of video cards.  DX11.

You can really only perceive 30 or so framerate max as a human being anyways (assuming having good perception), anything after that is just extra buffer in case frame rate drops.  Anything above 30 it is not visible if the framerate does not fluctuate.

Brands don't matter as much as what you are comfortable with, and getting the right GPU for your system.

To the OP,you already have a solid system.

Massive PVP will NEVER work,witch is why the idea is just dumb and i cannot understand why players keep asking for it.The over all bottleneck of the system will always lend to a laggy game and i highly doubt any developer is close to coding their games properly for multi core and GPU use.I know i did notice that NCSOFT/Arena net is looking for mutli core programmers,so i guess they are attempting the effort,but IMOP it is years away still.

I can give you the perfect example...When i bought my machine ,it was the top of the line everything and yet it could not handle many objects in FFXI a VERY low poly game,so anything nowadays has no chance.

I loved the idea of Besieged in FFXI,but when those 5-100 mobs would enter to attack the city and those 50-100 players would fight them,i could only see 10% of all the action,the rest was just lagged out terribly.So what is the ONLY way to make it happen?limit the view distance and quality to about 10 feet around you lol,then what is the purpose of massive ,if you can only see SMALL?it is a design that fights itself.Maybe 5 years from now,the PC's and game coding will be up to par,but they are no where near yet.

IMO the OP's system is perfect for right now,i would not spend one dime upgrading>the only thing i would go for is the fastest RAM you can get and 8mb IF your system can read 8MB,i am not sure if Vista 32 can,because it is basically just XP.

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/09/01/nvidia-roadmaps-turn/

after reading this i'm definately going for an ATI gpu.  and absolutely gonna wait on the 5800 series.

Massive PVP is a possibility with older games.  Ragnarok and Lineage 2 in 2004 were capable of multi-thousand player PVP.  AION is attempting it as well.  It really depends on netcoding and client/engine effeciency, it is possible.

i've been in 200 vs 200 seiges in lineage 2.  it was lag free for me after this card i use now.  but aion is more demanding so i'm upgrading to make sure i can still hang with the big dogs

I'm an ATI guy though and I prefer their control software, but when choosing a GPU simply find whatever has the generally best performance in the price range your searching or within the genres you usually plays. Forgot about the all the nvidia/ati has better drivers and it's a load of bullshit. The drivers will always have issues with certain software and there are people on both sites experiencing problems. Two of my friends just lost their nvidia card. I've had to replace one of my ati cards after only 1 day(warrenty covered so no problem but still).