You'll get lots of opinions about this. There are a few people on here using NVidia 8500GT cards and they seemed pleased with them. They are very affordable cards.
I have a NVidia GeForce 8600GT/OC 512MB card (a PNY version) that does quite well. Cranking all the eye candy to max does bog it down (things like volumetric fog are a fps quagmire). For somewhat more money, a great value is the NVidia 8800GT - right now, I'd say it is the best price/performance card available (excellent performance at a superb price point).
These are all PCIe cards btw.
Someone else will have to chime in about Ati cards, as I haven't used one in awhile.
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My system:
ACER AMD Athlon 64x2 4800+,
Antec TruePower Trio 650watt PS
4GB DDR2 RAM, 400GB SATA HD
PNY GeForce 8600GT/OC 512MB video card
Samsung 216BW - 21.6" wide screen (1680x1050) LCD
Windows Vista Home Premium, 32-bit
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My Father's ship, HMCS Waskesiu (K330),
sank U257 on 02/24/1944
running SHIII-1.4 with GWX2.1 and SHIV-1.5 with TMO/RSRDC/PE3.3 under MS Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP1
ACER AMD Athlon 64x2 4800+, 4GB DDR2 RAM, 400GB SATA HD
Antec TruePower Trio 650watt PSU
BFG GeForce 8800GT/OC 512MB VRAM, Samsung 216BW widescreen (1680x1050) LCD
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