8800 GTX and the GTS....

Actually, before you click 'Submit Order' button, I would wait a week or two for the 8800gt to come out, depending how much that makes the prices fluctuate, I believe your a middle-type-man and would be a perfect match for the GT, it gets close to the GTX and beats the GTS, plus its supposed to be a lot cheaper than a GTX, with not a massive lose in FPS. This is just my 2 cents but then again nobody likes pennies...

They say you want to pay more attention to the core clock speed than onboard ram but I do think there's a balance. Obviously theres some benefit to more memory or it wouldn't be an option.

This decision really should be based on your budget. If you can afford a more expensive card and plan to go SLI later it's a good idea to go for the more powerful card and leave yourself room for a nice upgrade later when the price of the second card is more reasonable and games begin to actually utilize a second card of that caliber.

That is what I did and I currently have the EVGA 8800GTX ACS3 KO 768 mb video card. I love it and I can play anything on any setting with no problems.

I had actually purchased the 8800GTS 320mb card and was going to get two of them but figured if I am going to pay as much for 2 GTS cards as 1 GTX I would invest in the GTX and have expansion room for upgrading later so I took the card back and purchased the one I have now and I don't regret it any but thats me.

Good luck deciding on your card and post to us and let us know what you get...

He's not OC'ing, What would he need TEC for? Its just a waste of power to buy a Peltier cooled graphics card without overclocking it (even then it uses a lot of power ).

The 8800GT is supposed to launch Oct 29. It looks like a direct competitor to the 8800GTS 320 & 640.
It is a single slot design which is good/bad news.
It would be prudent for anybody considering a VGA purchase to wait a bit until the situation is clear.

The 8800GTX is currently the best performing card out there today. The 8800GTS is not much slower, and represents the better value, particularly if you are not using the highest resolutions.

My advice: Look for the new 8800GT, particularly from EVGA. It is likely that you will be well satisfied with the performance. With the die shrink, I think the 8800GTX days are numbered, and NVIDIA is just waiting for ATI to show their cards before delivering the next highest end part. If, in the future, you want that new part, the EVGA step-up program may be useful, or, alternatively, the 8800GT will be a current line card, and will fetch close to list price on E-bay.

TEC is great if you live in a very hot region like here in South Africa and dont wanna go to water cooling..... and really, buying a truly unique, factory overclocked 8800GTX which runs 15 odd degrees celcius cooler at a price lower than all other generic GTX's available is a bargain i couldnt resist... especially since i already had a 630w psu