Well my Geforce 6600 just died today, think the fan jammed and it overheated and fell into madness.

And so I'm in the market for a new one, Benn looking around msot advice I have found is crap so I put it here, I need a good PCI-e Card costing around £150 good enough to paly msot GAMES nicely, and run programs like 3D studio max well aswell.

Thankyou for your time......



_______________________________________
[links Removed]
Do you have a preference between ati and nvidia? Figured I'd ask seeing as how some people are extreme fanboys and would likely eat thermal compound before buying from competition. I'm working in dollars but I'll have a search around.

Here's a decent ati card near your price range: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102810

If you're looking for nvidia you may want to check out, well actually I wouldn't really suggest a card from nvidia to you right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fanboy but they have just recently released their new card, the 295 and are likely to cut prices on their cards. Right now the 9 series are at the 150 euro price range (if my conversion was right) but I would suggest an 8 series card if you were INTERESTED in a 9 series. I know somebody will disagree but the 8 series and the 9 series are nearly identical. This card is well under your budget but is still a pretty solid card, my friend has one in his rig (and I had one before my upgrade)http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133205&Tpk=8800gt. He still nearly maxes games such as FALLOUT 3. He (and I used to) max out almost all multiplayer games. It's still a pretty powerful card.

The best advice I can give you is to BUY something that will last you some bit of time but don't go for the top end. If you buy things that will be running your current apps at min/little over REC. specs you'll likely need another upgrade soon and that will only cost you more money in the long run.

What kind of games are you planning on playing, maybe specific titles? Are you also sure that yourpower supply and everything is sufficient for a card upgrade? Not trying to insult your intelligence, just trying to tie up the odds and ends to narrow down your choices.

EDIT: What resolution are you playing at?