I would not get a computer with a nVIDIA card. Here is why:
1) While nVIDIA cards do give excellent graphics they tend to screw up other applications like 3D drawings in Star Offices StarDraw. Also, screensavers sometimes malfunction.
Not on my machine here at work, or my machine at home. I use Staroffice on both.
2) nVIDIA cards sometimes causes hang on logout.
I've never seen that either. KDE has/had some logout bugs but I've never heard those attributed to nVIDIA cards.
3) Certain applications, when run on an nVIDIA card, like Gtulpas and Xmms cause serious crashes.
Dunno that first one, but Xmms works perfectly for me.
4) You may not be able to return to your original session after switching to a virtual console.
Never seen that one and I use VTs constantly.
5) Certain applications that use anti aliased fonts (GV) do not work properly, if an nVIDIA card is installed.
I use Qt based AA fonts all the time and I've never had a problem.
6) nVIDIA drivers are not part of the SuSE distribution; you have to download them and install them. A kernel patch is also required.
7.1 installed out of the box on both my nVIDIA equipped machines. I upgraded them both immediately though so I didn't get to test much.
7) The provided software drivers are closed source so their can be no check, by XFree86.org, on whether they will work properly.
That one, at least, is true. 1 out of 7. Jonathon, you've clearly had a bad experience with an nVIDIA card, but all but the last point of the above can be put down to bad configuration. For the sake of the list archives, I'd like to make it clear that nVIDIA cards do work; anyone who has already got one will be happy with its performance under Linux. If you have config problems, don't get bitter, just ask. Loads of people use these cards quite happily. If you're looking to buy from new, ATI are the guys who support Linux the best though.