Not sure if most folks have heard...ATI/AMD R600 (see below) new video cards should launch at the end of the month. The specs look very impressive - on paper at least. Will be curious how it stacks up against NVIDIA's 8800 series cards.
Regardless of which camp you prefer the R600 launch would hopefully result in faster performance and the lowering of prices on the competitions side
Recomendation would be purchase a mid range DX9 video card if you were to buy one today and then eventualy upgrade to a midrage DX10 video card.
Unfortunately DX10 (as stated many times) is Vista only and MS has no plans to release a DX10 core for Windows XP. For gamers the future will have to be Vista if you plan to purchase and take full advantage of titles being shipped late 2007 and onwards - as painful as it sounds. For the Vista nay-sayers - I've been using it since November 06 and very pleased with the new OS. Of course there are some compatibility issues (hardware) with Vista mainly around sound cards due to the rewrite of major core components in the new OS.
-Meerkat.
AMD is touting the R600 will feature 700 million transistors (compared to the Radeon X1900 series' 384 million) and a full 512-bit memory interface with support for GDDR3 and GDDR4. On March 30, 2007, AMD will initially debut the R600 as the ATI Radeon X2900 XTX in two separate configurations: one for OEMs (12" layout) and another for retail (9.5" layout). ATI guidance claims the X2900 XTX retail card will come as a two-slot design with a vapor chamber cooler while the OEM version features a quiet fan cooler. 1GB of GDDR4 memory (supplied by Samsung) is the reference configuration for Radeon X2900 XTX.
Approximately one month later, the company will launch the GDDR3 version, dubbed the Radeon X2900 XT. This card features 512MB of GDDR3, lower clock frequencies than the X2900 XTX and is one of the first Radeons to feature heatpipes on the reference design. AMD anticipates the target driver for X2900 XT to be Catalyst 8.36, WHQL expected around March. Radeon X2900 will feature native CrossFire support via an internal bridge interface (no longer a need for the external cable). There is no Master card needed althought any Radeon X2900 can act as the Master card. All three versions of Radeon X2900 are expected to include native HDMI and one 6-pin and one 8-pin (2x4) VGA power connector (both connectors are also backwards compatible with 6-pin power supply cables).
Source: http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=38193