marcdoyle,
I'm not talking about desktop 2D resolution for everyday use. It seems that gaming or 3D acceleration is the center of focus here, and unless you have a large display, anything over 1280x1024 is "probably" overkill. Hey, whatever works for you, go for it.
KimLeece,
I understand your reasoning about getting a 4x card. However, let's say somebody wanted to go out and get a decent high-end video-card, but not necessarily top-of-the-line. Their choices might be an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro or an Nvidia FX 5700 Ultra, both of which are 8x cards that bring DirectX 9 to the table with decent FPS results. There's no reason to believe that because you have an AGP 4x slot that you would be bottlenecking the card's performance.
Most straight-up 4x cards out there aren't fully DirectX 9 compliant. If you're looking for an upgrade under $125, then you wouldn't have much choice anyway, since that's the price range for most 4x cards out there (like the GF4 Ti's).
I only stated what I did because you said "You would probably be better off getting an AGP 4x card". The truth is that you would be just as well off only if you didn't care about DirectX 9 and by no means are you necessarily "better off".
~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle