I saw that the Evga 8800 GTX is down under $300 now.
 
I figure I spent about $260 on the 8800 GTS about 8 months ago; if I spend $280 on the GTX it would just about add up to what a normal GTX cost back then. By now I have enough work to spare a little $ every 6 months or so to stay reasonably current.
 
Then I could pair the 8800 GTS 320 with my old 4200+ as my "final XP system" with my old monitor that maxes at 1024x768. Then I'll pair the 8800 GTX and my 6400+ in a Vista system keeping my current 22" widescreen.
 
But am I going to see a huge difference at that res with a 8800 GTX? Honestly - the Crysis demo ran pretty well on the 320, and most of the games I play are pretty good at 1680x1050 with the 320. If I'm going to spend almost $300 I want to see a noticable difference.
 
Has anyone out there gone from a 320 to a 8800 GTX at 1680x1050? How much improvement did you get in gaming performance?

big, the 320 is really limited by the Ram. the GTX has 768, so theres not comparison. At low res, the GTX should be about 30% better. At high resolutions that should increase

you would see noticeable differences but i wouldnt waste your money if you are already getting decent performance. I think you should wait until nvidia at least refreshes its geforce 9 series or until a new game comes out that requires something significantly better than the 8800gts to buy a new card, otherwise you are throwing away money that you could save towards a smarter future purchase. not to say the 8800gtx is a bad buy, but considering nvidia is moving into its 9 series it might be worth it to wait and see what happens with video cards in terms of pricing and what happens with demands in the newest games.

agreed. but your better off if you need to, to get an 8800 GTX or Ultra
since they are tri sli compatible.

I have the same dilema right now; i've elected to stay with the 320 for a bit longer.  I'm playing every game but crysis at 1680x1050 with all the details up (sometimes with AA).  
 
If i hang onto my 320 for now, i can spend $300 next year--it will gather much higher performance per dollar in a year than it will thsi year because of the expected technology advances and falling prices.  By this time next year, the 8800GTX will likely be around $150-200 (if you can find one).

I never upgrade unless I need to or some new cool thing comes out.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

dont get a GTX... get a G92 GTS for much less.

GTS 512 is limited by the 512 ram. If anything he'd be better off with the GTX since it has a future for Tri-sli in case he wanted to do it.  
 
While the GTS 512 is a good investment, I just don't think it will be at high res or in the future where Tri sli becomes more Mainstream

Exactly, and the G92 GTS has far higher overclocking headroom. When both overclocked to its limits, the G92 GTS is significantly faster than G80 GTX.

I was curious about the extra ram of a GTX. I read somewhere the 9800 GTX will only have 512 of ram (maybe I'm misremembering).
 
Does the extra ram of the GTX make it more valuable despite older architecture? Since I'm limited to 1680x1050 does it even matter? (Although, you never know, I might buy a higher res monitor somewhere down the line)

yes. It makes it more resistant to High resolutions.  
 
BTW
Don't forget that the GTX can be overclocked as well to Ultra speeds, and the GTS doesn't match the Ultra.

If I remember correctly, the GTX has more memory piplines, which helps. The g80 processor is still just that though. For higher resolution, consider factory overclocked G92 GTS with 1GB ram. This version performs above the G80 8800 Ultra, although only slightly.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814261006

That's a good card, but it was the sub $300 price of the Evga GTX that was tempting me.

The GTS 512MB or GTX will both crush the 320MB GTS at 16x10.  I run SLI 8800GT and am thrilled what they offer at 16x10 compared to the 320MB GTS I had before them.  
 
Look over Legions GF8 comaprison as they test 16x10 with these cards:
http://www.legionhardware.com/docu [...] id=710&p=2
 
 
edit: I should add, Crysis and Oblivion are the games I saw the biggest improvement in.  But then again, I enable FSAA to take advange of the added GPU power I have.  Without fsaa you may see less advantages.

Trust me on this.. at the resolution you're using the GTS will be the best option... it overclocks nicely and does the job great... for a lower price than the GTX.  
 
I uses less power.... and overclocks superbly.

look at the offer on the GTX

I have to agree, for 16x10 I think a $220 G92-GTS is a better buy than a $290 GTX.  Even if you want to stick to evga for trade up purposes, AT $230 I like the GTS G92 vs $60 more for the GTX.  GTX will really only be better at 19x12 or higher.  Same price, GTX all the way, but $60-70 more isn't about the same price.

Thanks for all of the advice.
 
I guess since the 320 still performs decent I'll just do what hesskia is doing and sit tight; wait to see what the future brings.
 
I do see the point that the G92 GTS is worth considering for my situation.
 
That extra ram (on the GTX) is just so damn tempting.

Everyone has kind of already said it, but it seems pointless to upgrade that setup right now.  With all the changes coming down the pipeline, it doesn't make sense if you are still getting decent performance.  So, the GTX is only 290 right now on the egg, if you have one GTX this is a GREAT deal to go sli.  If you are just flat-out upgrading from a diff card I would get a cheap 8800gt.  Wait out this sub-par 9000 series.  If you look at some of these early bench marks, the 9800 isn't that much better than an 8800gtx.  I forget where I saw it, but someone just benchmarked quad 9800gx2's and the gtx sli's kept up pretty damned efficiently.  They say that the 512 megs on the card is holding it back, whereas high res's really use the 8800gtx's 768megs of ram.  ANYWAYS, wait for the next generation :-).