Interesting toms hardware link for those about to shell potentially lots of cash for a video card!! I just built a system and did quite exhaustive research (for me anyway) about which components to buy. The video card was by far the hardest thing to decide on, I did not have 0.00 (or more) USD to blow on one component so I ended up with an nvidia quadro 900 XGL. the following links explains why: [URL]http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030123/opengl_nv28_fgl9700-15.html[/URL] [URL]http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040310/pcie-04.html[/URL] So for me, PCI express and even 8X AGP don't make sense in terms of performance to cost ratio, the other card I considered was the 980 XGL Don't get me wrong, if I had unlimited funds then I would have got the FX 3000. BTW a quadro 900 XGL can be had on e-bay for under 0.00 USD System specs if anyone is interested: Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500 socket 939 Mobo: MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum (Nvidia NForce 3 chipset) RAM: 2 Gig Corsair TwinX 3200 (2 one gig sticks) Hard Drive Western Digital Raptor 74 gig 10,000 rpm SATA with 8mb cache WD740 Video card Nvidia Quadro 4 900 XGL Monitor Viewsonic 19" P95f Case Antec Sonata quiet case ....RECOMMENDED