need recomendation on video card

The topic starter mentioned he's not a hardcore gamer and has a budget of $100. Our suggestions exceeded this a little. :) I considered a GTX 275, but it cost a bundle more than the GTS 250, and seeing that I play in 1680x1050 and mostly pick up strategy games and RPGs, it was a good compromise (price/performance). Currently playing Anno 1404 (Dawn of Discovery in the US) with high settings, and it looks stunning. Dragon Age arrives in a few days, but pretty sure max settings will not work here. I don't play state of the art shooters, only some older stuff, or action titles. It was also an upgrade from my 8800 GTS, which played everything in 1680x1050 that I wanted to play.

GTX 260 looks pretty nice, too, but prices here in Germany were double that of a GTS 250 when I looked. I also somehow had in mind that it needs a better PSU than my 550W one, but just checked and the minimum seems to be 500W. Well, it's something to upgrade to in a year or so. :) I'm less hardcore about games than I used to be in my teens and twenties, or even early thirties.

Again, a 5770 is perfect or a 4670 for non gamers.

Well, a HD 5770 is $175 minimum, and he wants to spend around $100. (Or did you mean for me? I frequently boot into Linux, so sticking to Nvidia. I do wish hardware was that cheap over here.)

The fan issue with Linux ATI drivers is exactly the chief issue, besides ATI apparently having decided to no longer support cards that are older than a year or so (in Linux). I used to have a box with an ATI X700 Pro that I had Linux running on, and the fan was so loud (as if I constantly played a demanding 3D graphics game, even when I did nothing but write a document in a text editor) that I threw the thing out within a week. It sounded like a turbine, and I'm not kidding! That was the last ATI card I had. But for Windows, either brand's fine.

@ThePizzaMan: Hey, no dissin' the Nvidia!

Mivo Just remember it's not the wattage of a power supply it's the volts on the 12v rail(s) that matters.

Well, full W rating is good to know if the manufacturer is not lying about it.

For the 12v rail(s), it's the Watts too that matter. Or more specifically, the amperage.

Volts x Amps = Watts

So theoretically -

12V x unknown amps = 100 Watts

Simple math can tell you that Amps = 8.3333

or if you know amps and volts but want to know Watt rating -

12V x (say for instance) 14 AMPS =

168W