Your answer depends on what you're doing with your computer. If you're just using your computer for office work (using programs such as Word and Excel) and/or browsing the internet, any video card these days will be fine. It's only when you step into the world of gaming when having a different video card then your friend might mean a small difference or a HUGE difference when you're both playing games. Hands down I think the best manufacturer of video cards out there is NVIDEA. Their cards have the widest range of compatibility with peoples' systems and PC games. Some video cards won't let you use Open GL (glide), which seriously hampers your gaming experience if you're trying to play some of the high-end performance games (Counterstrike, Halflife). Other card manufacters make their cards with a small cap limit on the amount of RAM (Random Access Memory) the card stores. Don't be confused: Card RAM and your computer RAM are two entirely seperate things. Your computer uses your RAM all the time, but card RAM is only accessed when your computer tries to perform an action or run a program that requires the video card to be used (games, graphics, PowerPoint presentations). Perosonally I'd recommend the GeForce line of video cards. They've always treated me well, and I haven't had any problems with them. If you want to research yourself, go to http://compreviews.about.com/cs/manvideo/ . Every single video card manufacterer is listed on that page, and every single type of card listed within every manufacterer link has a specifications table that shows you speeds, bandwidth, and more. You can then compare the prices for your top picks and determine which card you should buy.

Currently it does depend b/c NVIDIA has been the world leader in video cards but now the tension between ATI and NVIDIA has been rising and the good cards are rolling out. NVIDIA GeForceis the best for overclocking and it mostly the PCI-EXpress slot but i rather go for the ATI Radieon b/c it scores the best currently