if you want the best performance/$ card out there right now get a GF4 ti4200
you can get one from avlogic.com or newegg.com for around $165-$175, don't worry about brand, gainward, abit whatever, they are all based off the same reference boards, the 4200 is about 20-30% slower benchmark wise than the 4600 (fastest card out there now), but for less than half the price, and plenty of people have been able to bump the clock speeds of the 4200's up to and past the 4600, but even without overclocking it's a really good deal.
there are 64mb and 128mb versions of the gf4 4200, the 64mb one makes more sense in every way right now, memory default is clocked higher and it scores slightly better than the 128mb on everything except for Comanche, people can say "oh you will want a 128mb card in a couple years when game textures get huge" but that argument is stupid since you will need a new card by then to run the newest game no matter what you get now.
I just got one of these cards a couple days ago and it really is the "sweet spot" right now framerate vs cash wise, but if you are really hard up for cash you can always get a gf2 64m for like $65
I picked up the gainward one from avlogic a couple days ago for about $175 after shipping, comes with tv out and the dvi which can also be used for a second monitor if you want to get a dvi-vga adapter later (usually $8-$10).