jdavis said:
Yea you need to make sure you get exactly what you are wanting when you get one (XT is from ATI Radeon cards, the Radeon XT cards are top of the line stuff, the 9800XT is the fatest video card out there right now). A card labled XT, Pro or Ultra is a much better card than one without and extra label. A lot of times you will find a good price on a card because it's the plain one not the Ultra or Pro one.
Another thing to keep in mind is that this spring should see the introduction of all new video cards from ATI and Nvidia, these cards are 4 or 5 months from being the old models (ie the price should drop).
I just want to expand on what jdavis said above:
1) Don't bother buying an XT. Yes, they're the newest thing out there right now, but they're really just a halfway measure. They're primarily a marketing device, rather than a new technology. In terms of Dollars/frame rate, you pay a whole lot extra for the XT. Of course, if you're building a top of the line test bed, it may be worth the extra money . . . if not, don't worry about it.
2) Don't buy a card with 256 MB of RAM. You'll be paying an extra $100 for something you won't use. Believe it or not, right now GPU's are processor limited, not memory limited. Thus, you can get equal performance on a Radeon 9800 256 and a 128. There aren't any games that use large enough textures to tax your memory.
3) The next generation of video cards is coming soon. Expect prices to drop quickly once they arrive. In fact, prices are already dropping in anticipation. Vendors are moving their old stock. Check
http://www.pricewatch.com for pricing.
4) Right now, you can get a Radeon 9600 Pro w/ 256 MB for $109. There's a catch, though. It's not made by ATI. Sapphire technologies is an ATI authorized manufacturer of their cards (in the same way that ASUS, ABit, Gainward, all make nVidia cards). Generally speaking, Sapphire cards are about $50 cheaper. But they perform every bit as well.
Good luck getting a new card. If you've got any questions, let me know. I've done mounds of research on this in the past 6 months, checking both Tom's Hardware and Anand Tech, and tracking prices.
--G
