Originally I've been considering the 9600GT for my next build in a few weeks. I'm pretty sure it will be enough, considering I'm upgrading from a 8600M GT laptop card. I play COD4, Unreal 3, Assassin's Creed (when its released), and hopefully Crysis. I'll have a 1680x1050 resolution to work with so ideally I would want to play at that resolution. I may also play on my 1366x768 LCD just because its a 32". I'm pretty sensitive to frame rates and like them to be as close to 45fps as possible.

Today I found an MSI NX8800GT Zilent (G92 of course) card at Newegg for $180 after rebate. I plan on overclocking my video card so I thought the dual slot zalman cooler would make a big difference over the single slot ones out. I've also found an MSI 8800GTS 512MB (G92) card at Newegg for $200 after rebate. From my reading, I've found that the GTS cards seem to be able to get to 800Mhz on the core fairly often; where as the 8800GT seems to max out at around 720Mhz. I think, seeing as I am going to be passing on 8GB of Ram for a while, I have some money to put towards the graphics department.

I really want to try out Crysis, seeing as how I loved Far Cry, and want to get as good performance as I can without going over $200. Are there any benchmarks that put these cards to the test under Crysis in the same benchmark. I've really only been able to find the old G80 cores and such. I'm also curious as to how much improvement Crysis would see from a GTS overclocked to say, 800Mhz. I'm not sure if its on par with a GTX yet or where its stands in that regard. Or if anyone has any experience with the MSI 8800GT or overclocking a 8800GTS, please share. I think for $50 going from a 9600GT to a 8800GTS is well worth it! Thanks you guys!

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that I will be running either XP 32bit or XP 64bit if that makes any difference between 32 and 64 bit or DX9 and DX10. I'll be doing a lot of tweaking with Crysis to get the framerates I want as well.

$20 more, go with GTS... its just that simple....

what are your system specs because crysis at a decent resolution will be pretty tough on your system.

not he'll just bottle neck it

I don't have the system yet, but will within a month. Q6600 (3.0-3.4Ghz), 4GB RAM, Gigabyte DS3L mobo.

The main concern I have with the GTS or GT for that matter, is that its MSI. I've typically gone with eVGA or Sapphire cards (6800GT, X850GTO, X1950XT) I just want to make sure that an MSI card is able to overclock like all the others

well i can tell you to that 1680X1050 is pretty tough for any card with crysis. brands aren't the major factor in overclocking cards either, it's all about the heatsink/fan. if the msi comes with a better cooling system then it will OC at least as good as the others with a reference cooler.
with that said tho my 9600gt with the refernce cooler runs very cool and oc's very well. the g92 runs a little cooler than g80 but all of them are pretty fast. just find a dollar amount you wanna spend and get the best you can with that. good luck

Well, I'll go with the 8800GTS then! Thanks!

Heh, I ordered that same 8800GTS. Here's to hoping it suits both of our needs. I personally was in between it and the MSI 8800GT OC with custom cooling that looks like a 7900GTX cooler for 209...

but like zloginet said only $20 more so i got the GTS.
If you have no problems with open box, the GT is available for 149 and the GTS is 179 open box as well

And apparently newegg's info is wrong, they list 1 year warranty on the cards, MSI's site says 3years(total)

There's a deal at newegg EVGA 8800gt for 159.99 AR + ship

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] _-14130318

Promo code -$10

EMCAEAJDA

If it's that little to get the GTS, I'd have that if I were you.

The GTS is where it's at. Althought I REALLY like that MSI GT cooler. They shoudl put that on the GTS to, but the advantage on the GTS is it tosses the heat out the back. I doubt you will get to 800MHz without using fan profiles to keep your fan speed up. Mine artifacts at 800MHz but runs solid at 750MHz all day long. I didn't bother finding the max OC. DOn't bother OCing the memory, just put it at 1000 and be done with it. it doesn't get over 1050 and that is if you are lucky. I prefer stable.

But the GTS is where its at.