Ok I'm not a genius at all when it comes to specs and everything so forgive me if I say anything wrong. So about a year ago I was adamant to get a card because I wanted to change from ATI to nvidia. Many people told me to wait until the new cards came out and now they are. I think there is one more coming in a week or so also. Anyways, from what I have been reading in forums, people still say that 8800 Ultra is the way to go. I still have my HD2900XT on my http://www.newegg.com/product/prod [...] 6813121059 motherboard. My monitor's top resolution is 1280x1024. So, with my budget being about $750, should I go with one of the new nvidia's or get the 8800 Ultra, or possibly even a new monitor with them if I save up more? Also would I need to get one of those new chipset motherboards? I am very dubious about what to do at this point.

Keep the 2900, get a new monitor, and save for the next generation (G100 or 200 or whatever it is).

I think the 2900 performs very poorly. Why not upgrade now after waiting for all of this time? I need an option that will give me performance that will keep up with crysis's standards.

you'll probably need more than 750.00 to keep up with Crysis.
What processor are you putting on that board?
How much ram?
Those video cards are desinged to push 19"+ widescreen monitors. (1440x900 and up)
and to get the best out of Crysis you should really be looking at an sli/cf setup!
Last is the psu you're looking at minimum 800 watts for the sli/cf setups and 550 for a single card rig!

I recently seen a bench of 2 x 9600 gt's in sli against the 8800 ultra and they beat the crap out of the ultra!
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3266

1. nothing keeps up with crysis' standards.

2. the monitor you're using really doesn't show your card in it's best light - it will stand out if you use higher resolutions.

3. there is not much difference between the HD2900XT and the 3870, on which ATI's best card is based.

save the money, and get a better monitor.

Do i need to get one of those new 780i chipset boards to run 9600 GT'S SLI? I have 2GB of Ram by the way and this as my processor http://www.newegg.com/product/prod [...] 6819115003 which is overclocked to 2.7 gHZ. Also which monitor would you suggest to run with this?

No any decent sli board will run those cards. I just added the link to the article I mentioned earlier.
But if you ever thought about tri-sli the 780i boards are the way to go!
As for monitor try looking at the Samsung 226BW...it's an awesome screen!

So you are saying to get 3 9600GT'S, the 780 i chipset board and the Samsung monitor you mentioned?

not true silly moose, an antec 380 earth watts can handle most single cards/ single gpu's, and the PC Power & cooling 610 watt I'm sure could handle a cf /sli configuration, the trick is to find good quality PSU's not necessarily the on with such big wattage...

I thought the 9600gt cannot be tri-slied... u had better look that up to be sure...

it can't. the 3870s can with the appropriate mobo...

yeah 790fx, I love the MSI 790fx it works so well with 2 hd3870's, too bad i gotta sell my machine though...

Can someone just tell me what I have to do to get the best performance at this point with my budget because the 2900 just doesn't work for me AT ALL for some reason.

Do this : Go get new monitor and stay with 2900XT little more...When 9800GTX come (349$) then sell your card and buy one GTX No need for Ultra lol

Yeah, isn't it just the 8800GTX, Ultra and the soon to be released 9800GTX that can do tri-SLI?

Ok will that card run with my current mobo?

Maybe one of these would do.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] e+9800+GX2

But will the 9800 GTX run with my mobo?

At this point, any single card will run in any mobo, its when you get into dual card setups you have problems, or cpus

Yep it will work

one gtx will be fine for crysis though right?

At 12x10 it should be better than the Ultra, so it should handle most settings at a fair fps