Best card for $260 Range

Hey there I am trying to figure out which video card I will buy for an E8400 build. What I am looking at now is the GeForce 8600 GT OC by BFG Tech (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8594381&productCategoryId=abcat0507002&type=product&tab=2&id=1190678470708#productdetail) or a regular Geforce 8600GTS like this one(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500006).

I havent ruled out a Radeon 3870 but I just want to know with Nvidia's new 9600 line coming out which is the best card in this range now a days? Thanks for any feedback.

Oops damnit, Yeah I meant 8800 I was thinking about the 9600 and got mixed up. I am a little behind on my video cards. So that MSI one is the best you think? I was looking at Tom's VGA charts and it looked like the GT OC out performed GTS's, by a decent margin.

Another question that is off topic, I am going to have 8GB of RAM in this system and was trying to decide between Vista 64 bit or WIndows XP 64 bit, does anyone have any feedback as to which may be better overall for gaming?

Yep, 8800GTS (G92).

Evga might be slightly better to deal with, but they have the same core clock and the MSI is cheaper so thats what I'd opt for... unless you want the step up program.

Get a 8800GTS 512 (G92)...any brand they all OC to the same place.
Avoid the ones on Newegg they are overpriced...you can find them for $220 USD.

Honestly if you're going to be gaming only, then 2GB is enough and 4GB is plenty, by the time we actually will make use of 4GB we will be somewhere waiting for the 32nm die shrink of nehalem, so 4GB should be plenty even until Sandy Bridge (Next architectural change from intel after nehalem), so I'd only put 4GB now.

I'm one of the few followers of XP 64, however I'm all up for Vista after SP1, it seems that any huge gaps in performance have been closed and the few gaps left are in the single digits (single digit FPS differences), and it definitely has potential to perform better than XP (You can see Vista SP1 consistently stomping on XP when Oblivion is tested). I'd say, if you have to buy a new OS, then buy Vista 64, if you can use an old OS, then stick with XP until you feel like jumping on Vista. Personally, I got Vista here for some time, and I'll be jumping for good on my next formatting (Sometime in april).

what the intended resolution u are going to use?

Not to me it's not.
For half the price and alot less power/heat of a GTX the new GTS (G92) does it all and the human eye can't tell between that and dual GTX's.