I am building a gaming PC for around $800.00 - $850.00. So its going to be mediocre. I am am NOVICE PC builder. This will be my first PC i am building. I know quite a bit about PC, ive read alot about them, I am spend money on HIGH END Video card(s), motherboard and hard drive. So i am looking to spend around $150.00 - $200.00 on a video card. So what is better. I know that an 8800GT is amazing but like i want to play COD4 on medium to high settings averaging around 125 FPS.


1. What video card should i buy? x2 8600GT XXX or x1 8800GT

2. What would the FPS average at?


Thanks in advanced!

Get the 8800gt. It would be 30-50% faster than the 8600gts sli system. Mention the resolution while saying fps. Upto 16x10 you would get enough fps for your like.

I am trying to ssave money here. is there any 8800GT out there for cheap?

Presently the cheapest is

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150252

$180 - $10 coupon PVT88ST - $30 Rebate [fillable form] = $140 + $8 shipping. It also comes with Company of Heroes game for free
It'll run a lil hotter than msi version but you can replace the cooler any time later if you like.

im not sure if it would work with my PC i am building (Power, MOBO)

what is your psu? That vid card should work with any new motherboard. I wouldn't worry about 125 fps because your monitor can probably only do up to 85 anyways.

Well... we can't answer that question for you unless you tell us what you are building!

Why even bother to ask us if you should get the 8600 or the 8800, if you are worried the 8800 won't work on your system???

It sounds like you need to do a little bit more homework.

PS The 8600 has 32 stream processors (so SLI = 2 x 32 = 64), whereas the 8800GT has 112, almost double.

my PSU? is that the motherobard?

MOBO:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] ode=247078

CPU:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10006926

Power Source:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] ode=382326

Get 8800GT, 8600GT is cheap and is bad for gaming on new games.

You need to get a better quality power supply, the corsair 550 is marginally more expensive and has a much better build quality.

You need an AM2+ motherboard

And 8600GT XXX in SLI is going to use MORE power than an 8800GT and perform WORSE

Have a browse on these forums and look at builds that are around your price point.

If you are going an intel system, the most common will be something like this:
GA-P35 motherboard (if you want SLI you need to spend maybe $100 more, which could buy you the 8800GT instead)
E2160 CPU if you are going to overclock / E4xxx or E6xxx if you aren't
2GB of RAM, or 4GB if you have a little more to spend
500W - 650W PSU (Corsair, OCZ and PC Power and Cooling are the most popular)

This is the graphics card you should probably be considering: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814134037

^^^^

Not the most well known graphics card vendor.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/foru [...] sfire-faqs
Should i get 2 midrange cards instead of one high-end card ?
No, again i will answer this with example. 2 8600GT or single 8800gts ? this is one of the most common questions in forums. single 8800GTS (320 or 640) will beat 2 8600GT in games , because a single 8800GTS has more stream processors , more memory clock , more bandwidth. so again 1 single high-end card will beat 2 midrange cards.

Single 8800GT Definitely

True, if you want a more well known vendor:

8800GT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130318

is a good deal.

For detail explanation, 2 way SLI it just with actual performance around 1.5 times of single card and 1.5 times 8600GT is around 40% poorer 3D performance than a single 8800GT; however the power consumption of 2 way SLI 8600GT higher than a 8800GT. So go with 8800GT.

SLi can scale way over 50% in COD4, but even so a pair of 8600GT cards is no where near a single 8800GT. Look at 8600GTS vs 8800GT: http://firingsquad.com/hardware/am [...] page12.asp

Impressive 9600GT SLI results:
http://firingsquad.com/hardware/ge [...] /page8.asp