What's better for a gaming pc - 8800 Ultra x2 or 9800 GX2 x1?

[BigB88]

So i'm building a gaming pc. I'm going to be playing World of Warcraft and COD4 mainly. I'm not a Vista fan and will be using XP PRO 64-bit most likely. If everything else in the machine was the same except the video cards would 2 8800 Ultra or a 9800 GX2 give me better performance and fps while gaming? Would appreciate someone more knowledgable with video cards and building pc's to help me out. Also considering getting 1-2 280 GTX's but the cost and power consumption has me leaning away from them.

 

[hsetir]

Crossfire 4850 gets you the best out there for the best price.

 

[zipz0p]

The AMD cards are the best bang for buck right now. The 8800Ultras are pretty much out of the picture now.

What resolution is your monitor? That will help determine what you will need to play with settings maxed.

As the other posts said, WoW and COD4 are not really that intensive - both proposed solutions are overkill, probably even on a 30" monitor.

 

[BigB88]

Thanks for the help.

I do have a SLI mobo.

Monitor is a 25.5 Samsung with hd and dvi.

 

[copasetic]

A single 4870 will do just fine for WoW and COD4, and anything else that's out right now (assuming you don't play on a 30" monitor). If you're building this PC from scratch then I'd seriously consider getting a Crossfire board instead and going the 4800 route. They're just a better value right now, and depending on how well it scales a 4870+4870X2 system would blow anything but 2xGTX280's out of the water.

 

[romulus47plus1]

Between the 9800GX2 and 8800GTX, I'd definitely choose the 9800GX2. Anyday.

 

[dagger]

Since it looks like you already have a sli motherboard, get 2 g92 8800gts. At $119.99 after mir, it's serious power on the cheap.
http://fxvideocards.com/ZOTAC-GeForce-8800-GTS-G92-512MB-ZT-88SES2P-FSP-256-bit-GDDR3-PCI-Express-2.0-x16-HDCP-Ready-SLI-ZOTAC-Video-Card-p-16280.html

A single g92 8800gts perform about the same as a 4850, but almost $100 cheaper.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/HD_4850/10.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/HD_4850/15.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/HD_4850/17.html

In sli, it outperforms single gtx280, 9800gx2, and far outperforms any single 4850/4870. To cf, you'd need to buy another motherboard.

A stock g92 8800gts perform the same as stock g80 8800gtx, and with oc, matches g80 8800ultra.
http://en.expreview.com/2008/04/02/g80-vs-g92-hi-end-geforce-gfx-cards-round-up/?page=11