sli 8800gts or gtx280 or ???

[Poizen22]

well my problem is i have 2 19 inch lg monitors that i love oh so very much. now i would like to sli my 8800gts g92 to outperform the 280gtx, but then i would loose easy use of my two monitors. my second idea was to buy a gtx280 to get good performence in crysis, but end up spending 600$, now if i sli my 8800gts i willl probably be selling my 2 19's for money and spending the 450$ diference between the 8800gts 512mb and get a 24 inch monitor. my final idea is to sell both monitors or look for a trade and try to get a 24 inch lcd, and buy 2 gtx260's at a similar price to the gtx280, i would also sell my 8800gts g92 in this instance making up for the price diference of one gtx280.

now here are my options clearly.

-buy a second 8800gts, and get a 24 innch lcd monitor either sell my 2 19's or trade them.
-buy one gtx280 sell 8800gts
-buy 2 gtx260 sell 8800gts and aquire 24 inch lcd either trade or buy.

what would you recomend?

ati is not an option for me.
im getting a new job and will be very $$$ getting a 14$ an hour job! payed cash at the end of each shift usualy 7 hours 4 days a week.

[NosBoost300]

2 gtx260's sounds like a great plan to me!!!

[surgeVel]

Wow, I would say wait for ATI. The 4850 which is only $200 is showing to be comparable to the 9800GX2 in at least the game FEAR. It has 480 processor cores (a butt load).

Or the 4870 which will be GDDR5.

Or the 4870x2 .

From the benchmarks I've seen so far on the GTX 260/280 they are far from extraordinary and weaker than cheaper cards in come circumstances.

[NosBoost300]

umm... that was 4850 crossfire in that test.. not just 4850... and the min frames per second were far below that of the gx2

[Poizen22]

and im not getting rid of my 750i ftw.

[surgeVel]

Originally Posted by NosBoost300

umm... that was 4850 crossfire in that test.. not just 4850... and the min frames per second were far below that of the gx2

Woops, forgot about that. But regardless, the crossfire 4850's had a higher maximum, and maybe even a higher average but I can't remember without going back to look at it. All I know is 2x 4850 = $400 and 2x 4850 which is about the same as 9800GX2. If the 4870 is any good and comes out for its rumored $300, it's likely that 2x 4870 = $600 and 2x 4870 > 9800GX2 by a decent amount.

Then there is always the 4870x2 which hopefully will beat out the 9800GX2 by itself and maybe only cost $500 or so... but I'm just plain hoping on that one.

EDIT: I just checked the post. The benchmarks used 2 completely incomparable CPU's. I bet if they had used an X38 board with the same QX9650 @ 4.0ghz as apposed to it's crappy Phenom 9850BE @ 3.0GHZ, the 4850 CrossfireX results may have shown it even higher! Seems logical to me.

[vernong1992]

HD 4850 Crossfire.. it seems great

GTX 280 fails.. it sometimes does worse than 9800gx2, and you can outmatch it with dual 9600gt's

or you could get one HD 4850 and downgrade to 19''

[Prototype]

"sli gtx260 sell g92 sell or trade 19 inch's for one 24inch."

if u need another monitor maybe a smaller cheaper one

[gurusan]

Whatever you do I suggest getting rid of 1 monitor. I had 2 monitors for awhile and it was useful in some desktop stuff, especially cad work...but as far as gaming goes it's pointless.

[vernong1992]

Oh I forgot to consider something.... that you sold your old Maximus to thirdshiftdj, so pick up a new Asus P5E and flash it (or Maximus)

PS: Soft Modding is the funnest thing