Comp Hardware..

[tattooed_pariah]

Hi,

I perused the tech board (all two pages) and didn't find anything but gameplay questions so I'm a little confused as to if I'm even in the right place..
the situation is as follows:

I built a system from scratch in march, I can't recall most of the exact components, but I do know that it has an AMD Phenom quad core 9600, 2 gigs of ram, and at least 400gb hard drive running XP Pro 64-bit. What I skimped on temporarily (and I'm VERY glad I did, as you will see..) is a video card. right now I have the built on mobo HD plug.
In April I found out I was deploying for 6 months in May, so now i've got this system that WAS about top of the line, that's 6 months old and hasn't been touched..

I know Bethesda released a list of recommended video cards, but I was wondering if any of you have a card you can vouch for?

What I'm looking for is something along these lines:
1. under $300
2. plays fallout 3 without any problems
3. doesn't sound like a friggin jet engine firing up (I leave my computer on 24/7 and it's close to my bed, I like cool hardware, but I don't need the fans being louder than my alarm clock..)

Personally, I prefer ATI, but that's a personal preference based on experiences from about 5 years ago, so I'm open to buying nVidia as well.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! thanks!

-Matt

P.S.

as for the version of the game I have, it's the Amazon "Bend-over-while-we-insert-this-diagonally" Surivial Edition w/shitty clock option I haven't physically seen it yet as my ship is not home for another couple of days..

 

[tattooed_pariah]

alright, i'm home now and I was wrong, i have 4 gigs of ram.. but this shitty on board video card is pissing me off, when i hit pgdn, the page skips down, that's how bad it is, rolling the mouse wheel results in convultionistic spasms downwards or upwards...

dambit and i still ahven't received my copy of FO3

 

[Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude]

The 9800 GTX is a good card (it's a g92 gts with faster memory).

It's a measly $150 and comes with a reasonably quiet fan.

 

[Buxbaum666]

I have an nVidia 8800GT and the game plays fine on "Ultra" settings. The noise is noticable while playing 3d games but the fan is reasonably quiet in 2d mode. You can get it for 100-120 US$
The rest of my hardware is two years old (Intel Core2Duo E6300 @ 1.8GHZ, 2GB DDR2-667).

 

[tattooed_pariah]

I actually was advised from someone in an XKCD irc chan to buy the xfx 8800GTS card (i bought an older model than he recommended but oh well) It runs fine and looks good.

Picked up two 120mm case fans at the same time (only had one 80mm case fan before) one is 18db and one is 14 db, so they should help keep the comp plenty cool..