I have since learned that the error message I saw on boot up was a reference to the BSOD I got during the previous session.
The problem has not happened again.
I paid $129.95 Cdn for the ATI X1650 Pro. That works out to about the same in US currency at the moment. It was the best deal I could find on a vid card with the specs it has. One important consideration was the power requirement for the new card. 300 Watts is fine, 350W is pushing it just a bit, and 400W+ means a new power supply. The BFG's I saw that were out of my price range anyways, all wanted 400 Watts. The X1650 Pro said 350W on the box, but the instructions inside said it wants 300W.
I think it is the NVidia 7800 GS that is either the equivalent of the ATI I bought, or one step up. I didn't see any NVidia's on sale at a competitive price. My online surfing for cards found none either. I saw no references to a rebate either.
I'm sure in January or February some nice NVidia card will go on sale, but I sure wasn't about to sit and wait.
Just for fun I also checked out prices on 9800 Pro's, but they are expensive as hell now that they are used in Mac's.
I'm waiting for UT3 fixes to be put into the next set of ATI drivers. When I see that happen, I will d/l the new drivers.
(We're all going to be giving UT3 a try, aren't we?)
To be honest, I would rather have bought the NVidia 7800 GS. It has already been reported as working ok in Dell 8200's at the Dell forums. But unfortunately time and money worked against me.