Question is how much $$$ have you got/willing to spend?

This is a budget nVidia card. http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=247&bid=2&sid=84396

Some others
http://www.msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7267

http://www.msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=8011

These would run BF3 and Skyrim with out any problems I think.

while they all all good cards that have been offered, try this http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=247&bid=2&sid=93114

cheaper off the bat, also uses less power, yet has more than enough grunt for your needs!

I think most of you guys are underestimating the HD4850's performance. The GT240 or GT630 are going to be weaker cards, a GTX550Ti is a good suggestion though. I'd suggest a Radeon HD6770 1GB (should be around $80) as another option.

Speaking of video cards, I brought a Gigabyte 7950 on Friday. Installed fine, running games fine, but I cant get a temperature, and therefore the fan stays at 100%. Anyone know of driver issues with this or is the card faulty?

Im about to format as I am due for one anyway, but thought one of you gurus may have heard of something. I have googled the shit out of it and come up with nothing.

Yer mental its there, but shows as 0 degrees constantly.

Speaking of video cards, I brought a Gigabyte 7950 on Friday. Installed fine, running games fine, but I cant get a temperature, and therefore the fan stays at 100%. Anyone know of driver issues with this or is the card faulty?

Im about to format as I am due for one anyway, but thought one of you gurus may have heard of something. I have googled the shit out of it and come up with nothing.

See if there's a firmware update for it. My cards sat at 70% because they're the OC version, even if the GPU was 20 degrees, and didn't move an inch even if the card went up to 90 degrees celsius. o_0 I updated the firmware and now the fans operate more normally, can't say how they go at higher temperatures because I removed one of the cards and the remaining card never gets above 50 C (gets more air flow with other card out of the way).

Updating my Gigabyte cards was pretty easy (nvidia though).
Download & install gigabyte's Easy Boost (overclocking & monitoring utility thing)
Make a backup of your current video BIOS just in case. (optional)
Download new video BIOS and unzip
In Easy Boost hit upgrade & find the file you downloaded & unzipped.
Reboot

Your mileage may vary.

Wow,

I just got the fan to run normally, but still cant display temp. I guess that doesn't really matter. There was a note on the gigabyte page when I went to find the firmware update. It was in Chinese but the pictures tell 1000 words.

i have another 4850 you could have? :P

I am yet to find anything I can't throw at a 460. I don't have particularly stupid expectations though. TA/D3 at 1920, nothing special.

Resolution hurts a little bit, i mean the step between 1920 and 2500 is pretty big in total number of pixels, but the bigger killer is usually filters. More than 4x the processing per pixel once you start adding the things which make a PC prettier than a console.

If you can find one around a gts250 is such a great little card. i bought one when they were brand new (i believe they are a rebadged 9*** series card. honestly been a wonderful little card and i picked up a 3d monitor a couple of weeks back (it was on sale for 10 bucks more than the monitor i was looking at) and its been playing everything i play at medium - high graphics options.

prolly the latest games i have been running on it are diablo 3 (in 3d) portal 2 in 3d - with a razer hydra..so awesome, sins of a solar empire rebellion, la noire, swtor and a bunch of others...

i realise those games may not be the greatest examples of graphics intensive games but considering the age of the card its working wonders.