depend on your usage. If just desktop use, play video, it's fine. if you are talking about games, well, then there are much better choice out there.
Depends on what you're using it for. It's just an entry-level card, not a bad choice if you're just surfing the net, watching videos... Can handle some not so intense games. Games like Half-life2, NFS:Carbon should work fine, given that you dont play it on the highest settings...But if you're playing games like FEAR, Doom3, i suggest that you get a better card... BTW, x1300pro should be able to handle Vista's Aero. You can compare it with other cards here, http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html?modelx=33&model1=529&model2=607&chart=217
Half-Life 2 works perfectly on that card - only thing is grainy reflections on the water, but the rest of them is fine. Textures are quite realistic and bright. FEAR wouldn't take any chances on this card at all - you might as well getting a X1650pro for this job. Doom3? I tried it on my friend's home yesterday - you can max out all the settings except you must put 2x or no antialiasing for it to work optimally. Btw, my friend's X1300 is a normal one, using a 425/250 speed. The extreme versions and the Pro ones are much better, and a 425/500 versions are seen as well.
o i usually surf the web 99.9% of the time and often play videos on my comp but my games dont require a super video card like sims 2 and madden they shouldnt be a struggle for a X1300
In that case it should be enough. Chai's suggestion is nice as 7300gt is priced similar to the ati counterpart.
My suggestion would be to overclock ONE component at a time. Start with the GPU or the memory and go up 5-10MHz at a time. Check for visual artifacts and back off a little when you see some. Then try overclocking the other component. Finally, try overclocking BOTH at the same time. But this time you will know what the limits are for both GPU and memory.
Use your Nvidia card with the latest Drivers always.U can download a free utility called " NVHard Page " which will add an utility to your Nvidia control Panel.Using this u'll b able 2 safely overclock your Nvidia based card.But do remember that u should go for overclock by making small increments at a time.Just slowly push both sliders to right a bit & check that level of overclocking by pressing the Test Changes button.If everything goes normal,then try pushing the sliders to the right till you get an expected result but be reminded that overclocking the card will automatically void ur card's warranty.So,go slowly & safely.Only proceed by a small margin at a time.