best nvidia card(s) for $400?

Well, my understanding was that the 9800GTX is better than the 8800GT, so I'd get that if they were the same price. One thing I'm confused on though, You should be able to get 2 8800GTs for a lot less than 2 9800GTXs. I thought the GTs should be in the $300 range.

How about two 4850's in Crossfire?

If I remember correctly they should beat 9800GTX in SLI.

As far as NVIDIA goes I guess a 9800GTX would be your best bet, maybe a nice overclocked model. Also the 55nm 9800GTX+ should be released in a couple of weeks and it should overclock better and stay cooler than its 65nm counterpart. The GTX 200 series is WAY overpriced, so fuhgetaboutit.

Now I'll give you some real advice: get a P45 motherboard and an HD4870 (or 2 ). NVIDIA motherboards aren't as bad as some claim them to be, but they aren't on the same level as the Intel boards.

Other than that I think you have a great looking build.

4850 or 4870 in xfire is a better choice, you'll get better performance and DX10.1 support (which is pretty useless for now but who knows... ) and better mobos.

Get g92 8800gts instead. At $119.99 after mir, you don't have to spend nearly as much as $400 for sli.
http://fxvideocards.com/ZOTAC-GeFo [...] 16280.html

It performs better than 8800gt, and about the same as 9800gtx and 4850.
http://en.expreview.com/2008/04/03 [...] review/12/

yeah, if you absolutely have to get nvidia, then get 2 8800GTS 512MB.

Great prices on those gts's. Only thing is theyre going eol. But for the price/performance, its hard to turn down

Thats true, tho they wont get the 230, but 200 is more than 130

I paid more for a single 8800GTS G92, two of them for $240 is the deal of the year. And yes, they run spiffy on an nf4 mobo.

Zotac don't actually make the gpus. The chips are made by Nvidia, on reference board required by Nvidia. Brands don't really matter. Besides, it comes with 2 year warranty. You'll want something better after 2 years anyway.

Here's another idea.

EVGA 01G-P3-N891-AR GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130338

Yep, dual g92 8800gts will outperform 9800gx2 by a fair amount. Core clock of 9800gx2's g92 gpus are underclocked due to heat issues. It cost nearly as much as 4 8800gts too.

Dual 4870 certainly would be a top performer, but it'll cost $600. A single 4870 cost $300 and performs far below dual g92 8800gts. It's good if you have more money to spend.

Well one 4870 does get beaten by SLI 8800GTS ....

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14990/12 ... (9800gx2 = SLI 8800GT)

Agreed that a single card is less headache... but apart from Assassins creed, 4870 is quite comfortably beaten by SLI'd 8800GTS .... i never ever recommend crappy Nvidia boards, but at that $240 price SLI 8800GTS is just too good to pass.

Though at this moment if i had to upgrade my PC, i would get a nice Gigabyte EX38 board and a cheap 8600... and wait for the 4870X2. That way i would avoid an expensive and irritating SLI board and have a shiny brand new RV770 on an X38. Bliss.

On newegg, I got my 9800 GTX Superclocked for 199.99 (free shipping) 3 days. 2 of them are of course better than 2 8800 GT's.

Higher clocks, 12 more stream processors and a better fan. It also can be 3-way sli'ed if you're planning to upgrade to another one. It overclocks better, because of it's slightly higher power usage.

I run Crysis quite well on high (average 60-70FPS via Crysis Bench mark tool)and a little slower and unstable at extra high. I set the game on medium and I am non stop . with very little performance decrees
780sli/2x9800GTX/Q9450 @3G/(good temps)/4x1G corsair dominator @1050mhz/2x150G raptors raid O striped/i 500G seagate/samsung dvd/cd/
I also used the Q6600 and it also performed pretty good @ 2.6 Just a little faster than stock but absolutely reliable and great graphics

9800gtx = 8800gts. Identical g92 chip with identical 128 sps, although slightly less efficient.
http://en.expreview.com/2008/04/03 [...] review/12/