[Kevin Sevcik]

I'll second that notion. You don't really need a workstation class video card for animating unless you have an unlimited budget. Here's why:

A spiffy super hot video card will only make modelling a little quicker and less jumpy. It also might make previews of your animation run a little faster or smoother. I think you'd be better served spending less money and getting a fast, (not bleeding edge) video card. Like something 6-months or a year old. Then spend all your money on a really fast processor and lots of ram. Also, you might look at the price for an AMD socket-939 based system as well, as they apparently are faster than pentiums in some rendering applications. A faster processor and more ram will cut a lot of time off your rendering, which is what really matters.

Also, If you have money left over after this spending spree, try to get a second box together. 3DS max will let you spawn an install onto other machines to use for network rendering so you can spread the workload and get things done even faster.