Okay, I'm looking for a better card then the one I got now, which is an MSI nVidia 6600GT (PCI-E) OC'd to 550/1175. I'm planning to be spending $200-300 and one video card that caught my eye was this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102027 It has great everything, but the fan is supposively loud... and I'm looking for preferably an ATI card that can use HDR and AA at the same time in Oblivion (meaning the card needs to have SM3.0).

In your case, the Geforce 7900GT is best fit for your 200-300 budget. TMP-Man Asus P5P800-SE P4 506 @ 4200Mhz 1.45v Thermaltake CLP0024 w/ 1700RPM 92MM + AS5 1GB Corsair 2-3-3-5 DDR400 120GB/300GB 7200RPM HD MSI 6600GT AGP 550/1150

its not ATI but i would suggest the 7900gt also... its a good card, my friend has one and plays oblvion nicely... TJ297 All Prices are in Auzzie Dollars =D AMD 3800+ 2 Gig RAM Nvidia 7800GT Thermaltake 430w PSU Antec LAN-boy Case Onboard Sound WOOOOT Surprisingly not bad :p

Ah, so then 256mb of GDDR3 IS enough to run oblivion really well, also having 24 instead of 16 pipes on one card sounds better... but wait, if the 7900gt has shader model 3 and true hdr why cant it run HDR with AA?

7600GT for now and when Vista rolls in January, get a Direct X 10 video card. :-D

Hmm, I have a 7900GT on a 3500-64, Oblivion runs 'ok'. You can put everything on max at 1024*768 and it is super smooth, but go to 1400*900 and you start to struggle. One thing I did notice with the 7900GT is that performance drops very little with increasing levels of AA and AF? Texture size and grass were the main lag in Oblivion. I went from a 6600GT to the 7900GT and the difference in HL2, Q4, FEAR and X3 is pretty amazing (1680*1050 high everything etc)