Graphics Card Help

I finished making my computer in January of 2007.
At the time, I chose NVIDIA GeForce NX8800 GT for my graphics card because it was both affordable and had good reviews when it came to gaming. Last month the graphics card shorted out, and I took it to a computer repair place in town to see if they could fix it at all. They said they'd replace my graphics card and charged me $275 ($190 of which went to the replacement graphics card).

They put in the wrong graphics card. They put in NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT. It's pretty much a massive downgrade. I would have noticed right away that they gave me the wrong graphics card, but my dad picked up the computer for me and hid the graphics card box (because he knew I would get angry about it and thought I wouldn't notice). I started having weird compatibility errors within two days, and my PC games told my graphics card might "not be good enough to run them" and to "consider upgrading my drivers". I go to upgrade my graphics card drivers... and it says that the upgrade I had downloaded was for Windows Vista/7 32-bit and that I... didn't have that operating system?

I definitely have Windows Vista 32-bit. The graphics card isn't registering my OS. The FPS on my games sucks now, and the frames lag every minute or so. This is extremely irritating when I play online.

I talked to my dad and he promised he'd call them and talk to them about it but, long story short, he never called and never bothered to tell me he wasn't going to call. It's been two weeks now and I plan on going in tomorrow to talk to them about it.

Anyway, what I'm asking is: (aka the tl;dr part)

Should I request the same graphics card I had before? (NX8800 GT)
Or is there a better gaming graphics card that's in the $200-300 pricing range?

Also, I'm upgrading to Windows 7 Home Premium (32bit) tonight, if that matters at all. Thanks.

the best graphics card in the 2-300 range is the 5850, it's roughly 2-4 times as powerful as the 8800GT.

if you want something merely twice as powerful, settle for a 4850 or 4870. or a 5750 or 5770

currently indeed a hd5xxx series card would be the best bang for the buck. You get good speed, low power useage and all the features of the next gen of games.(dx11)

Thank-you, both of you. I researched into what you both recommended and these graphics cards are both excellent and in my price range. Hopefully I will be able to obtain them soon.

Just a note, the HD5800 series has seen a price increase due to decreased yields lately, and reportedly they are extremely difficult to find.

http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=654

Just posting to say that I also recommend the HD5850. However, supplies are extremely scarce - I ordered mine 40 days ago and it hasn't even been sent yet.