Quote Originally Posted by MSG View Post
Yeah. Goliaths like Best Buy tend to jack up their prices, simply because they can, but occasionally you find a good warehouse store with amazing prices.
Fry's Electronics is one of those stores... I'm lucky to have one somewhat near where I live!

As far as video cards go, you can probably find a GeForce 7900 or 7950 for the price range you're looking at, maybe a little more. If you can get the brand BFG for almost the same price, get it... it comes overclocked, and has lifetime warranty! (very nice, since in the past 5 years, I had 3 video cards fry after the fan broke for no reason) They should run the games you mentioned fine at high graphics. As for the games yet to be released, they will probably run medium/low graphics for games coming up after a year or two.

I myself got a little impulsive when buying a new card last month (after the fan of my other one died, thus frying the card ). I ended up spending $500.00 on a 8800GTS, with DX10. I went overboard... but that card should handle all the great games that are coming up in the next year:
I could probably have spent the money in a better way, but it's too late now, so I'm just enjoying the graphics! DiRT looks amazing!