Neb, I posted this very same question over at the TTLG website that is dedicated to the old Looking Glass Studios game designers best known for the Thief and System Shock games (both which are excellent, I might add). In a nutshell this is what I received in response: Stay away from the MX series of any GForce cards. The GForce 3 is still very reliable and going down significantly in price. The GF4 as well as the Radeon 8500 are at this moment the top of the line and the respondents seemed to be split on the choice of preference.
BUT HERE IS SOME VERY SIGNIFICANT NEWS: Two days ago I was at
www.gamespot.com and under their PC News section they had a report that Nvidia will be coming out with a new chip this August that will be a step above the GForce 4! Think about it, the G4 has only been out 6 months. Another thing to think about is that the Video Cards of today or even two years ago can handle almost anything that is in game play. I have a Viper 770 and I have no problems with it whatsoever doing the RPG's that I love so well. It seems the software lags behind the hardware significantly. The only game out right now that demands high specs at the moment is Morrowwind. As much as I would love to play the game I refuse at this moment to buy a whole new video card just to play one game. If games start going this way then I'll have to reconsider. If you can wait I'm sure it won't be too long before the G4 starts dropping as well. Hope this helps.