Secondary HDD making games lag/ Graphics card selection help

[[TC] Stephen]

Are those the only games you play? If so you probably won't need (or be able to use) a high end video card if your CPU isn't up to it. If you're only playing source games and a couple of other games like rigs of rods a 9800GT could do most of what you want it to do.

Did you mean a GTX 480? the 490 doesn't exist (despite all the news, there's no hardware to prove it) and the 5xx series has been out for a while now so I doubt someone would make a 'new' card with old tech.