With a price cap of $300, the ASUS Radeon Extreme AX850 XT is your best buy. It connects through a PCI-Ex16 connection, has 256MB of GDDR3 VRAM on a 256-bit interface, has 16 pixel pipelines, has dual DVI outputs, supports VIVO for video input and output (for your video editing), comes with an impressive bundle of software and cables, is very highly rated (not just on Newegg but also on many benchmarking and gaming sites), and has very good thermal properties. This is a two-slot card, meaning that it will occupy the slot that it resides in and will cover over the slot below it because of the design of the cooler. The cooler is very large and is very loud at system startup, but after post, the cooler is actually very quite.

If you want any other suggestions, just ask.

For that kind of money, I'd consider a 7800GT. There appear to be at least 2 within your price range ($299 that I could find - phoawr, $1 under). A very good chipset that will perform faster than a X850XT in most situations.

If you want to spend just a little bit more than 300$ I just got a new EvGa GeForce 7800 GT. Its a little bit better than most other 3rd party 7800 GT's. That would be my performance recomendation.

heres my DONT USE BECAUSE IVE TRIED TO GET IT TO WORK FOR 9 HOURS AND STILL CANT GET IT TO WORK RECOMENDATION - EvGa GeForce 7800 GT. It tears almost immediately on age of empires 3 and it doesnt have anything to do with settings. If I set it too low or high it will eventualy start tearing and freeze up.

In conclusion I have mixed feelings about this card. My friend has a GeForce 7800 Gt from Chainsaw and the graphics look beautiful. Bottom line is get a 7800 GT but check the 3rd party companies forums to check how many problems their card has.

i got a Radeon X1900 GT - very nice

http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/part...900GTPCIE256MB

i suggest you try to cap you'r price at $500.

but since you intend on 300, try out the 7600GS

very good card, i used to use one until i got 8800.

then i upgraded to 9800GTX.

maybe buy the 9800GTX its supa fast and the best bang for your buck card i will ever see!
i can run crysis at 4XAA and all on high.

Adverage fps is 35-40 on large map's

only $300 online and $480 in store for some reason.

You're only about 3 years too late with this post

oh..

HOLY

wow didnt realize!

LOL

LOL indeed