Geforce 9800

The 9800 GTX+ is identical to the GTS 250 (just as the 9800 gt is the same as the 8800 gt, silly Nvidia).  It's a pretty good card, you wouldn't be wrong to go with it, but I think you'd be better off getting a Radeon 4770 (slightly cheaper, similar speed, runs cooler and less power consumption).  If your using a resolution below 1680x1050 I would stick with the 9800gtx+/gts250, but if your using higher (1920x1200) than the 4770 is superior in every way.  At 1680x1050 the performance is very similar and the other attributes give the edge to the radeon 4770.  Alternately for a few dollars more you could get a Radeon 4870 512mb for ~140 after rebate that would be noticably faster than either of those options.   

To clarify when I say the 8800 GT and 9800 GT cards are the same I mean they changed the sticker only.

Yeah my current resolution is 1440x900 so i guess i should grab the 9800gtx/gts250?
Thanks ^^;; 

I'm running an 8600 GT on my machine at home...   Guess it's time to pony up and upgrade.

All of the answers above are correct, but ill dive deeper in the differences in both physical and performance. Ill try to not make it confusing.

Let me start off with the 9800 series of graphics cards by nvidia. These are the entry level main stream cards that perform well enough for the casual and budget gamer. But some dont know this, the 9800 series cards such as the 9800 gtx contain the very same gpu die as the older 8800 series, 8800gtx as an example. The question that may rise is "whats the difference in performance? power consumption?" Aside from memory differences, the mere difference is a mere die shrink, correct me if im wrong, from something larger down to a 65nm manufacturing process. This has its many benifits such as adding more transisters for increased performance, lower power consumption which leads to less heat which in turn allows substantialy higher clock speeds. So in the end, a 9800 gtx is a highly overclocked 8800gtx in terms of only the gpu itself, not the memory. Now the second part of a graphics card, the memory. Memory, also known as vram and frame buffer, in high amounts, such as 512mb gddr3 in the 9800gtx, is what alows you to enable all that eye candy, Anti ailising and Anthroscopic Filtering (pardon the horrible spelling) while still getting the throughput needed to maintain a constant frame rate. At you resolution of 1440-900, to be honest, is more CPU bound than graphics card but the 8600 is severly lacking the oomph needed for today's and future games. In the end, more memory + faster memory speeds = better scaling with AA and AF enabled.

And to Tiduz, to correct you, the g92 gpu die in th 9800gtx+ and the gt200 gpu are vastly different. The gt200 architecture is superior in effeciency, raw speed and power consumption.

All in all id rather give someone in the market for a new card some advice to help em make their choice rather than make a flat out suggestion. I personally have a ATI 4870 1gb w/ a 24" moniter 1900-1200 resolution and the only game i get sub 30 fps is the fabled crysis at max settings. I can play sins with 24xAA and 16x AF w/o a hiccup.

My one suggestion i will say is unless you desperatly need a new(er) card, wait for the release of Windows 7 which introduces DirectX 11, which is substantially better than DX10 an DX10.1. In the mean time, take a look into other upgrades such as adding more memory, faster CPU, and most importantly, a NON bargin powersupply. My old room mate bought my old 4870 512mb and q6600 and ended up frying em cuz he went cheap on a cheap 500w psu.

sorry about the length, this is the kinda stuff that pays my tuition bills so i know quite a bit. any questions, feel free to ask.

 I'm running a 9800 Overclocked from EVGA (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130450).Have it paired up with a quad core and coundn't be happier.Been running this system on highest video seetings with no problems.Think you would be happy with one,Good Luck!

The GTS 250 512 mb uses the same old fashion G92a/G92b gpu, the b revision being the 55nm shrink with power/heat advantages over first generation g92a 9800gtx+'s.  Some GTS 250's are rebadged 9800gtx+'s (g92a) while others are the G92b.  Only the 1gb version is guaranteed to have the redesigned pcb on the 55nm process (g92b).  No GTS 250 uses a gt200 gpu, those begin with the gtx 260 and are a significantly different architecture.

You may know a lot but you shouldn't be correcting people who are right with wrong information - look it up next time if you're not sure.

Two 4770's in crossfire is the most powerful setup you could get. Two 4770's = 220 bucks. A GTX280 is 350 bucks. Guess which one is more powerful, runs cooler, and is better price for performance? Yep, I was shocked too. Get dual 4770's. You can't go wrong. Not only is it cooler than a Gtx280, it also runs quieter, uses less power, and is more powerful. Amazing.

Pick em up.

That's double his budget, and 280's have been pretty much replaced with the 275.

I was only saying. If anyone is going for price/performance ratio, that is the way to go. Either way, a 4770 is his best bet. It smokes the benchmarks and gives him some breathing room. He can simply add in another 4770 later for crossfire, when he needs the extra performance and can afford it.

I agree, if he has two slots on his motherboard that is the best way to go imo.  The GTS 250 will give slightly faster frames at his resolution but it costs more so it isn't a better deal.  The 4770 is easy to crossfire down the road while the GTS 250 requires a SLI motherboard which I highly doubt he has.  Keep in mind we don't know the rest of his specs, and I would guess his processor would be a bottleneck if he had 4770 sli.  The 4770 will also keep your room temperature lower which is a great reason to buy with summer on its way

Yeah all true. However, IMO, the extra money spent on a GTS 250 could be used for more RAM if he needs it. Besides in some benchmarks and games, the 4770 is BETTER than the GTS 250while being nearly 50 bucks cheaper. The GTS 250 only gives a few frames more, and thats only in certain games that are branded by the nvidia logo. Not worth it. He could get another 2 sticks of Ram (provided his mobo and OS support them) and a 4770 for the price of GTS 250 while still having similar performance. Plus it runs cooler and requires less power, OH AND RUNS QUIETER. heh. fricken amazing card.

Thanks for all the great tips guys i really appreciate it, as soon as school ends (next wednsday) im pretty sure ill be picking up a 4770 it sounds like a great card. Some one wrote something about waiting for windows 7 to release with direct x11, will that be anytime soon and do you think the price of the 4770 drop?
As for the rest of my specs im kinda bad with computers so heres what it says straight from my computer-> properties:
AMD athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual
Core Processor 4600+
2.41 GHz, 2.00GB of RAM
Physical Adress Extension.
If i was to invest in a new processor what would you guys reccomend?
Thanks again!

Depends on how much you have to spend.  With your motherboard (AM2) you could buy any AM2 or AM2+ processor (but you will miss out on hypertransport >2600mhz meaning you'd want to get a processor made before 2008 that uses hypertransport 3.0 or older or else put up with a bit of performance loss).  Check here to make sure your motherboard will support phenom chips http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=2269154&enterthread=y I highly recommend buying more ram, get up to at least 4gb or 6gb.  4gb of ddr2-800 is like 50 canadian these days.  I need to know your budget and powersupply before really recommending something though.  Most amd chips are good, the x3 720 is good value and the x4 phenoms are AM2+ and are excellent value.  

I really wouldnt want to spend more then 200 all together.

Pakie, if your motherboard supports Phenom processors, go with the Phenom II X3 720 as Tidus already mentioned. Very decent processor. It's speed is faster than some quads for the same price, yet it has an extra core that dual cores don't have. Very nice middle ground.

Well the 4770 will cost ~$100 leaving you 100 to upgrade your processor/ram... that's not enough for a meaningful processor upgrade so I'd recommend just buying 4 gb of ddr2-800 ram and the videocard for now, and doing a motherboard/processor upgrade later on down the road.  You could buy ddr2-1000 or 1066 instead for better overclocking later on if the price difference isn't much (it probably will be minimal).

I was reading some stuff telling me that ati perform in some games extremely well and in others they dont do so hot, kinda makes me want to go for a nvidia card. 

THe reverse is true of Nvidia cards. It all depends.

If there is one game in particular you really wanna play a lot it can make sense to choose ATI / Nvidia based on that.  Ie: farcry 2 runs way better on nvidia while age of conan and grid run way better on ATI.  If you play a variety though it doesn't matter a whole lot cus they trade blows here and there.

Most cards these days are very reliable, I favor Nvidias more than ATI's but both are good.

I have the Igb DDR3 version of the low power version of the  Galaxy 9800GT.  Runs great and does not require connection to the PSU so runs slightly cooler than its powered counterpart.  It mightn't be a GTX275 - 280, but coupled with a Phenom II 920 and 8gb RAM, it's handled everything I've thrown at it on 1680 x 1050 without issue... and while some say the 9800 is no more than a glorified 8800, the 1gb 9800GT certainly is better than a highly clocked 8800GTX.

The 9800 GT costs about the same as a 4770 but the 4770 is better in every way.  I have an 8800 GT myself in my second system - it runs most games well at 1920x1200, aside from Crysis and the usual offenders.