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#51
For a period of time NVidia was the rave by gamers mainly due to various blogs making their own comparisons to favor some new model. As far as prices it will depend on where you buy as well as from who plus what you select. For a real eye opener have a look at a Radeon HD 5970 4gb model card and then note the price for that particular high ender! Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100280-4GBB Radeon HD 5970 (Hemlock) 4GB 512 (256 x 2)-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ Eyefinity
I'm sure you never paid out anywhere that much for any card! So you simply shop for models in the price range you can afford as well as look for the best deals found for any particular card!
For this build I ended up with an MSI Radeon 5750 1gb model that does the job. Someone else running ATI may have gone for a 5970. Most gamers will start off paying a little more for a high end performance card. The best thing to do first is look at both ATI and NVidia to see which suits your own needs the best.
ATI did regain an edge since AMD bought out ATI a few years ago. ATI used to drop support on older model series too fast at times but now see AMD provide a previous catalysts versions page at the support site. Lately however higher end models have been priced lower once out for a few months in order to stimulate sales.
As for plugging things into the wrong jack you may get away with it a few times but it's never a good practice. The idea of shutting down is a preventative measure since no live power is being applied where you could cause damage.
As far as speakers and head phones the solution here was simple by having a head phone jack on the center mix speaker where the power button, volume, and balance are seen. Many cases see audion jacks you plug in at the front or top of the case itself rather the need to keep plugging and unplugging speakers constantly.
As for the optical audio options you typically patch from the card into a stereo or surround sound receiver rather then seeing a set of speakers plugged into the sound card or onboard directly. Instead you patch out to a home entertainment center and use those speakers. The input there also allows playback from an external device(player) through the pc using the pc speakers when the external device lacks any.
Note all that is options available when the jacks are present. That allows you to set things up differently.