New Video Card

[Newbie101]

I am questing for a new videocard, depending on the price.
My current Setup:
Asus mobo (4X AGP)
dual 866 Mhz P-III
512 MB SDRAM
40GB HDD Maxor (?)
LG 8/4/32 CD-RW
32 MB nVidia Geforce2 MX/MMX AGP
Soundblaster PCI 128
300 Watt power supply, I think.
regular mouse and keybo

I am considering a new card and I looked around NVidia's site and I noticed that regular cards and cards for 3D Graphics (modeling, animating, etc) are in 2 different sections and have rather different prices.
Here is the deal, I might be using this card in this comp, and then when I go to college, either take the comp with me, or get a new comp and insert the card there. I plan to be using it for both games and 3D Studio Max.
So what's the difference between the types of cards? and what should I be looking at?

 

[DatAsian]

"Here is the deal, I might be using this card in this comp, and then when I go to college, either take the comp with me, or get a new comp and insert the card there. I plan to be using it for both games and 3D Studio Max.
So what's the difference between the types of cards? and what should I be looking at?"

If you want to save money, try the GeForce 3 line or the GeForce 4 TI 4200. They're pretty good, and the prices are dropping. It should be sufficient for gaming at relatively large resolutions (over 1024x768x32). If you want to go for the top one, try the GeForce 4 TI 4600..that's the fastest of the GeForce 4 line. If you want the best, hit ATI's Radeon 9700 Pro...very pricey though

 

[Newbie101]

I was really wondering about the difference between a nVidia Quadro 4 and a Geforce.

 

[Rapmaster]

The Quadros are very expensive and designed for graphics workstations

I doubt you need it, even if you are planning on using 3dsmax in future classes

Plus games aren't usually tested on them-- I heard that some people have problems with War3 on Quadro cards