OK, so I decided to get a 7600 GT to tide me over

All 7600GTs can be used in SLI; basically you'll want to pick the cheapest 7600GT you can find while still buying a name brand card such as eVGA, BFG or XFX.

How about a faster ATI card for less then the 7600GT

SAPPHIRE 100106L Radeon X850XT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card $119.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681...

The X850XT isn't really faster. Both perform similar.

The new Leadtek PX7600GT TDH with a redesigned pcb and gpu cooler - reviews were good and shows that it is what the 7600GT should have been interms of noise and overclocking potential. Also what I dont get is why Ati fanboys continuously recommend that crappy dated X800 series with no SM3.0 Support! The poster asked about a 7600GT not a fucking ATI

Lmao, agreed 100%. X800 series is outdated. Go for the new Leadtek 7600GT is you can find it.

I third the Leadtek PX7600GT recommendation. Good card, but any well known brand of 7600GT is good, avoid the 7600GS.

Bosaka, I couldn't have said it better myself! It's like me being like "hey, what's the best brand of Coffee available?" and somebody being like "WHAT??? F Coffee man, you REALLY want some tea!"

While it's fine and dandy that tea is a great drink as well, I'm a coffee drinker and I just want to know about different blends. Know what I mean?

I would check this baby out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130283

Yeah and the best part about what I said was that I can't be flamed for it because if they look at my sig I have a mad o/c X1900XT  

AFAIK 'any' 7600GT is SLI capable, now that they've fixed this in the driver you can use different brands too - although they will default to the capabilities of the slower card.

If I were you, I'd try and get a factory-overclocked version from the likes of evga or XFX.

Actually, if I were you I wouldn't buy a 7600GT, but thats not really helping your question  

*cough...7900GT, X1900XT ftw...cough*

In my opinion they are the single-GPU solutions to go for if you want a balance of cost / performance.... X1900XT in particular I'd personally recommend.

If you go cheaper, then existing high-end games are gonna be pretty slow let alone upcoming ones. Of course you can spend more, but if you could afford a 7950GX2 you wouldn't be posting about 7600GT.

Didn't even notice that, actually! Anyway, yeah, I have been an Nvidia fanboy when I thought they had best cards, switched to ATI, back to Nvidia, and thinking about switching back to ATI again. It all depends on who has the best card when I decide to buy a new one. I'm not going to cling to some emotional love for some card manufacturer that doesn't know my name  .