8800gtx mistake?

8900 cards will most likely come out.

Can't tell if it'll be better, or slower than R600.

The step up program is a very good program.But what the heck are you going to step up to???there is nothing faster than the 8800gtx at this time.Now yes you have 90 days for the step up,but I would really ask evga what if any cards will be out to step up to within the 90 day time frame.If they say there is nothing to step up to within that time,then maybe wait for a couple months before buying it just to be safe.Or ask evga to extend the step up for you considering the situation.Goodluck.

Dahak

AMD X2-4400+@2.4 S-939
EVGA NF4 SLI MB
2X EVGA 7800GT IN SLI
2X1GIG DDR IN DC MODE
WD300GIG HD
EXTREME 19IN.MONITOR 1280X1024
ACE 520WATT PSU
COOLERMASTER MINI R120

Performance wise, I don't know how R600 will stack up. They have half the unified shader pipelines but more memory (1gb compared to 768mb) that is faster (GDDR4 compared to GDDR3 and 512-bit compared to 384-bit). Also, the R600 cards are supposed to be shorter than the G80s and be cooler as well. However, I'm not sure about power consumption either. From the little I'm able to scrap together, the core clock will run about 200 MHz faster and memory bandwidth about 200 MHz (400 MHz effectively) faster. Fill rate is in between the 8800GTS and 8800GTX, though I admit I'm not exactly sure what all of this means. Memory bandwidth blows the G80 out of the water though (R600 appears to have 75% more memory bandwidth over the G80, at least the GDDR4 R600). That took a little bit of researching and thinking, but I don't know how it will all add up. The R600 has less pipelines, but from what I remember, ATI cards have generally had less pipelines, so who knows? Hope this helps!

Oh, I forgot to mention that R600 supports native crossfire. That means you don't need a "master" card anymore and the connection is internal instead of that ugly external stuff. A site called "Hardware Secrets" (first time I visited that site) said that crossfire can be run on new Intel chipsets like 975x. The nForce 680i is a killer chipset though and enables amazing overclockability. However, I'm too tired to speculate further.

*Edit* I stumbled across this. If that's true, even though R600 has half the shader pipelines, the R600 will be theoretically twice as powerful as the G80? Am I tired or is that accurate? Holy crap, I need to sleep on that one.