Well here's my POV FWIW: If it's specifically for Doom3, seriously consider
getting a 256MB card due to the amount of memory needed for textures, -
that's if you really want to see how good the game can look and play.

Yes, you're right the chipset is important though, go for something with
GeForce 6800 in the title and you won't be too disappointed. This is
assuming the rest of your system is up to it.

Although I'm an ATI fan, I wouldn't consider them at the moment for a top
card as in my experience (4 PCs) the aforementioned chipset is so far ahead
of anything ATI currently have on the market.

LK

I use Circuit City a lot, they greet me by name when I walk in :)  But,
neither in store or online do they stock full lineups of either
radeon/Xnnn or Nvidia chipset cards.  The do stock the ATI 9800 Pro-128
andit's listed for the same price I paid for it just back in May- $250.
It's a good card and it will play Doom3.  It won't play it any better
than the FX5900-128 I'm using at this time.  What would blow your socks
off in Doom3, Far Cry and the upcoming Half-Life2 is a Nvidia 6800 GT or
Ultra based card, both with 256 megs DDR3.  Circuit City DOES list those
two cards.  Before rebates, $399 and $499 respectively.
HIH-McG.

It would have to be a 6800 GT, I personaly went for the XFX and have been
blown away by it!

Well, some people have suggested the GeForce 6800 GT.  It's a great
card, but you did say you didn't want to spend a fortune.   I assume
you're looking to purchase a card from the previous generation of
graphics cards that are priced well under $200 --- the Radeon 9800
series or the GeForce 5900 series.

Most games use Direct3D, and the Radeon 9800 series kicks the GeForce
5900 series' a.s on Direct3D.  However, one thing nobody has mentioned
is that Doom 3 is one of the very few games that use OpenGL.  The ATI
chipset flat out SUCKS at OpenGL.  It's horrendous.  If you use an
OpenGL game like Doom 3 to benchmark the 9800 Pro, you'll be SORELY
disappointed.  But for most other games *not* named "Doom 3", the
Radeon 9800 Pro will give you the best bang for your buck.

As for the video card RAM --- 128MB or 256MB?  Unless you're into
Anti-Aliasing or high resolution gaming (1280X960 or above), most
games out there will give negligible performance boost from having
256MB RAM.  It's simply not worth the money... unless you're playing
Doom 3, of course.  Doom 3 looks markedly better with "high detail"
textures than "medium detail" textures.  You can play on "high detail"
with only 128MB video RAM... but expect to have a half-second loading
time whenever you open doors or whenever monsters show up.  Needless
to say, it greatly ruins the immersion factor for me.  A video card
with 256MB RAM won't suffer from these load times.

So it really comes down to how desperately you want to play Doom 3.
Assuming you're looking to spend under $200, then the 256MB RAM and
the NVidia chipset are best for Doom 3 performance.  128MB RAM and the
Radeon 9800 Pro for best performance-to-price ratio on all other games
not named "Doom 3".  IMHO.

I just bought the MSI RX9800Pro-TD128 (MS-8956) which is a Radeon 9800 Pro
but it has the same core as the 9800 XT, as I understand.

I play Doom3 on High Detail with shadows at 1024x768. While it _could_ be
smoother, I find it VERY playable and I'm very satisfied with it. The only
time it slows down is when my hard drive takes a dump because something is
loading in the background (like a download finishing or something) which
really isn't the video card's fault anyway.

I bought the Radeon card because I'm really waiting on HL2. Doom3 was to
keep me busy while I wait. Not much of a substitution, but I guess it has
nice lighting effects.

<runs for cover>

Regards,

Robin

The sales people were told to push ATI cards that week.  Or were
getting a better commission off ATI sales.

You might conisder waiting for the NVIDIA 6600 AGP cards to appear... I
guess the guy at Circuit City owned an ATI card ;-)

X800-XT PCI-Express is hard to beat - trust me!