im building a new system..odviously, my last forum post got deleted cause very intellegently put it into the wrong forum. every 2 -3 years i get completely consumed, why? its time to build a new pc!...i need to know what the best graphics card is hands down, i will be running sli 2x, and mabey even 3 depending on the answers i get, any input would be well appreciated

Wait until the benchmarks for new cards come out next week. There is nothing to be done about new graphics cards until then. The new systems will push prices of todays top cards down. NVidia's new cards (GTX 280) are overpriced and underperforming from the preliminary reviews, however this may to some extent be driver issues.

Ati are set to release this coming week. Wait for the new 4xxx cards.

Right now the 280GTX is the best, at $600.00 + each they had better be. Still having some driver belches. The new ATI 4850 @ $200 due out next week may change things, but i doubt it, but will give an idea about the 4870 and the 4870x2 due out later in the summer.

280GTX is terrible.

It is marginally better then the 260 and costs $650. Unless you get a hardon from running Crysis at 1920x1200 on High then there is little reason to spend the money on the GTX280.

Real (not just random benchmark testing) on the GTX280 and 260:
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/arti [...] VzaWFzdA==

I've been looking into the same thing and I've come to the conclusion that it is definitely worth seeing what the 4870 and 4870x2 will do. I wouldn't buy the 280 right now, it's just not worth the money. If you're planning on running 2xSLI then wait just a bit for the 9800 prices to drop after 260 and 280 come out and pick up two of them.

If you feel like taking a chance on used cards, you can probably find some barely used 9800 GX2s for under $200 each and run them in tri-SLI for less cash than one 280. People are already trying to offload them. Then again, get two and pocket the extra cash.