upgrade advice (vid card)

About a week ago, I decided to spend about $300 upgrading my computer and started researching components. Here is what I have now:


GIGABYTE GA-MA770-DS3 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX All Solid Capacitor AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane 2.5GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor
HIS Hightech HX80XLQ256-3TOEN Radeon X800XL IceQ 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16
Maxtor Ultra 16 300GB SATA hard drive
CORSAIR Dominator 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
LITEON SOHW-812S 8X8 DVD RW Dual
CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX 520W ATX EPS12V PS/2 MODULAR POWER SUPPLY
crappy 14" flat panel monitor
crappy computer case

I know the video card is jumping out at everyone as an "opportunity" (haha), but I am really getting tired of my crappy monitor. I think I may buy this:

Acer X223Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail

but it only leaves me with around $130 for the video card. Pretending like I am not limiting myself to $300, I found these two cards for approx $200 each:

MSI N260GTX-T2D896 OC GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

HIS Hightech H487F512P Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

Which of these would you recommend and also, would they be that much better than what I could get in the $130 - $150 range to justify blowing my budget wide open? I am into "light" gaming, things like AOE and Warcraft and Diablo clones. Also, I will probably end up keeping this video card for at least 2 years.

 

LOL @14" monitor!:eek You'll really love that change to a 22" LCD! You have a decent setup there but if you only do light gaming then the 260 GTX is overkill in my opinion. It's a darn good card though! Try something along the lines of 9800GT or a low end 9800GTX which fits your budget.

 

I agree! You'll love the 22" monitor! I went from a 19"CRT to the same model 22" you listed and the difference was amazing! That will be money well spent.

As for the video card, check out a 9800GT like augie mentioned. They can be had for near $100 if you shop around for a deal so you'll still be inside your budget. Those other two cards would be overkill for the type of games you listed.