I bought a 3dLabs Wildcat VP880 Pro graphics card in 2005 for two reasons.  The main reason was to enable me to go to
a dual monitor setup without installing two single head video cards.  At the time, dual head video cards were rare, so there weren't a lot of choices.  Up until then, I had been using the built-in graphics adapter in the PC, which works fine, but a dedicated card frees the CPU of those tasks and improves performance.

The VP880 worked fine with all my applications, and I was able to create a comfortable dual monitor configuration for
Photoshop CS2.  I could dedicate the primary monitor to the largest possible view of the image, with the secondary monitor holding the palettes and tools.

Recently, I upgraded to Photoshop CS3, and that's where the problems started.  The installation of CS3 went perfectly, but although I could see the palettes on the screen, I couldn't do anything with them.  It was like they were frozen.  I couldn't move them, clicking on them did nothing, and none of the functions there could be accessed.

At first, I had no idea what the problem was.  Numerous Internet searches eventually led to me to a single posting on a website from someone with a slightly different model number 3dLabs card, who was having exactly the same issue.  He had been unable to resolve the problem, and ultimately identified the culprit by swapping out video cards.

I opened support requests with both 3dLabs and Adobe, to see if this could be fixed.  To make matters more complicated, 3dLabs is no longer in the graphics card market.  Although they continue to sell cards they've already manufactured, and promise to support them, there is no ongoing or future development work going on.  This means no updated drivers to solve problems.  (Which should serve as a word of warning to anyone considering purchasing a 3dLabs card.)

After several emails back and forth, 3dLabs was unable to help me.  Nothing they suggested trying worked.  Adobe couldn't offer any help either, and suggested I open a "Bug Report", but never responded to my question on how and where to actually do this.  The last email I got from the technician at 3dLabs said he now had another customer with the same problem, and was "referring the problem to England," whatever that means.

At this point, it was obvious that my only recourse was going to be to replace the card.  The 3dLabs card was only two years old, and hadn't come cheap, but Photoshop CS3 was already installed, and I had no other prospects for being able to use it any time soon.

Since my PC does not have PCI-e slots, I needed an AGP card.  I looked around and eventually settled on an HIS Radeon
X1950 Pro IceQ3 Turbo.  This card was a bit of a departure for me, as it is more of a "gaming" card than a card for graphics workstations, but it comes with 512 megabytes of VRAM, and should be able to deftly handle any task I require of it.  One point worth noting is that, in the world of gaming type graphics cards, the chip is the important thing.  Several manufacturers make cards with the Radeon 1950 chipset, but the HIS card had the most impressive cooling setup, as graphics cards can generate a lot of heat under load.

So far, so good.  Until I realized that the 240 Watt power supply in my PC was not going to be up to the task of running the new card, especially with all the peripherals I've added over time.  Newer graphics cards are so power hungry that they need a direct connection to the power supply, and can't draw sufficient power through the bus.  That meant I was going to need to replace the power supply too. <sigh>

In the end, I purchased a really nice Altec 500 Watt power supply.  Naturally, the mounting holes didn't line up, and I had to drill new holes in the case, but I got it fitted and its working great.  It came with a direct connection for the new video card, which I installed at the same time.  With everything wired up and the new card installed, I reconnected the nine gazillion cables that lead to my PC, because of all the card readers and external drives, etc., etc, and...

It worked.  It took a little while to get the drivers all straightened out, but since then everything has been stable, and, oh yeah, Photoshop CS3 works too.