This is an interesting discussion.

Gareee and PJZ99 thanks for the good advise.  I think its sound counsel for your average bear but I am smarter than your average bear so i may still go through with my ideer.

PJZ99
I actually use a laptop with a 32 meg video card.  Your last post makes it sound like you don't fair much better with your 7800GTX!  Its hard to see what you mean by "unpleasant" without actually seeing the difference side by side.  But I am wondering what performance increases people have in fact seen in the viewport based on an upgraded video card.  I have nothing to compare it to.