Where have you been? Nvidia's flagship card of the 9xxx series, the 9800GX2 just came out last week. It was speculated the card would be a dud, since they didn't use a new chip, and it would be overly priced. It is, of course, better, and can surpass the HD3750X2 in Crossfire in some situations, but not by enough, for most. It is also considered not to have a great enough boost to match the price of $600.

And also, there are 5 8800 cards, more if you count the different memory sizes. In order of performance, from least to greatest: 8800GS, 8800GT, 8800GTS(512MB+), 8800GTX, 8800ULTRA.

AND, the 9600 is NOT better then the 8800GT. FACT. Maybe a GS, but I don't know much about the GS. Just because the series is newer, doesn't mean ALL the cards will be better then the older cards. The 9600 is a mid-range card, hence the mid-range price.

There are also ATi cards too though. Before the 9800GX2, the HD3850X2 was pretty much the best card out, matching the top-notch 8800's and having a reasonable price. Although in terms of value, the 8800GT has been regarded as the best card to get.

The 2600(thats what you said, right? I can't even remember, I'm deep into this.), or whatever card the OP had, IS a new-ish card, and a pretty good one, and SHOULD run BF2142, and FS fine with no trouble.

Heck, I have an X1600XT and I can run it on medium.

depends what you want and which benchmark your using. Some of these cards are carp and perform no better than older cards while in a DX9 enviroment. It's only when running DX10 that they begin to pull ahead, personally I hate Vista so have no intention of shelling out for a new card when my current rig performs as needed.

Also, historically while nvidia have pushed for faster and faster frame rates, ATI tend to have a much higher picture quality. Those who are heavy video/photo user may wish to try an ATI card to see the differance compared to nvidia.

Bite my shiny metal Tie Fighter!