If you buy any of these cards, buy the GTX 280 or HD 4870. You might as well throw in an extra $20-40 for that extra boost (quite a large one, I might add).

@ PoopSnorkeler: "cross your fingers that uncharted and mgs4 aren't bombs as well." Wow. Just. Wow. No, I'm not even going to say anything. At All. Nope. Okay, fine. Uncharted is already out, and it's a kickass game. And no, MGS4 will not blow.

The 360 has more of a GPU-based system, wheras the PS3 is more CPU-based. This makes alot of sense because the graphics on both consoles aren't the same because of this, give or take a few textures, lighting maps, etc. The 360, since it's more GPU-based, it handles the GPU-based tasks better than PS3; lighting, texture, contrast/saturation/color (although the lighting and texture aren't very different from the PS3, it's the color that make them look better, plus, the PS3 loves blur effects, and this, with the anti-aliasing, make the texture seem like it's smoother, instead of what texture really should be) The PS3 handles the CPU-based tasks better than the 360; anti-aliasing, draw distance, depth of field/blur, etc. You can't say that the 360 has crappy CPU, compared to the PS3, because obviously it doesn't, it runs the same games with sometimes better FPS, (because of original optimization for the 360). But, you also can't say that the PS3 has no good lighting effects, heck, look at Uncharted.

@ nnn: All of your subjects/factors on the little "list" of yours are all opinionative, and all depends on how you look at them. I mean, "games:360"? C'mon. You're telling me that's not your opinion? Oh wait? You are?

Wait...what? What's so subtle about that?! Vista is a heck of alot better than the Xbox version. But, IDK if it's worth the upgrade from XP > Vista, and plus buying the game , even though you have it on Xbox...

Well, it didn't help me much at all, but it would've like a couple years ago, when I didn't know anything about PCs, I think that this guide is (obviously) aimed at beginners, so this would help "beginner" gamers alot.

I've used my ATI card for years, but then again, NVidia usually comes out with something better, I personally like ATI, idk why, but, it always just turns out that ATI will just counter with another proccessing powerhouse. It's kind of dumb, but I'm always wondering when to buy a new gfx card, because a couple months later, BAM! A completely new card pops out, which just BLOWS AWAY the previous one. But if I'm gonna buy a new card, I might as well buy one AFTER I get a PS3.

My setup is a Sony Vaio PCV2242, 2.0GB DDR 400MHz RAM, 3.2GHz Intel Pentium 4 HT, 17" LCD 1280x1024 I really don't know what to do, because my computer's almost 2 or 3 years old now, I don't know if it have an AGP slot or a PCI Express slot. How the hell do I check?