The short and sweet of it is I'm building an entirely new system and I've allowed myself 400ish dollars for video card(s). From what I've gathered most people think that the 8800gts(g92) is a better deal than the 9800gtx because of the price and fairly similar preformance. However, this is all gathered from older posts and since then I've seen people talking about price drops so I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight. As it stands I can get a 8800 gts(g92) off newegg for 159.99 after a $30 mail in rebate or a 9800 gtx for 209.99. Like I said I've got about 400 dollars I can spend on this but I'm a college student so if there's no big difference I'll gladly keep a little more money in my pocket. That said if anyone feels strongly about any other card(s) I'd appreciate your opinion, either a single card or sli works for me. As I'm sure it will make some difference, I'm making this as a gaming computer so I plan to play the newest games on the highest settings . Again any input is appreciated.

Performance between the two is basically identical.
http://en.expreview.com/2008/04/03 [...] review/12/

However, 9800gtx supports tri sli, while g92 8800gts only support dual sli. And 3 9800gtx obviously outperform 2 8800gts. It'll cost you though.

For dual sli, g92 8800gts is the better deal.

If you don't have the motherboard yet, do yourself a favor, and crossfire 4850's on an Intel X48 board.

9800gtx

Could not agree more. As an owner of a Nvidia chipset I would recommend to anyone to go with Intel. Intel chipsets are cheaper, run cooler, and overclock better. I mean really...what else is there?

Well if insist on going with Nvidia then I say go with the 8800gts while the price averagely is almost the same now the minimal differences don't mean much. Besides you could always shop for deals such as this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127325

$155 after mail in rebate. With a deal like that the paying $200 or more for the 9800GTX just wouldn't make sense. Since you plan on going SLI this would save you about $100 which you expressed that saving money is a plus to you. I doubt you would actually notice the difference in the cards performance and going with the 9800GTX certainly wouldn't delay any future upgrades as the difference isn't that big.

Also the card I recommended comes with the game The Witcher which is a really good game if your into RPG's. But beware it may interfere with your studies!

If you want nVidia, go with the 8800GTS 512's and save your self some cash. The 9800GTX and 8800GTS 512 both use the same G92 chip and both have the same 512Mb of DDR3. The only difference is a minor clock increase and, in the case of the 9800GTX, a newer PCB that supports Tri-SLI. There is a 95% chance that you could run both GTS cards at the same speeds or faster than their GTX brothers.

As stated earlier, 4850 Cf would be another excellent choice. Even with beta drivers, this setup can match or outperform 9800GTX SLI in nearly every game. Crysis being the notable exception. I also think a x38/48 Mb with 2x 4850's would be an excellent choice. Just make sure to get a pair of aftermarket GPU coolers if you go this route. These cards run HOT!

consider ATI cards, specially if you didnt order anything yet. the new ATI cards are way much better in ratio of money/performance= value than the nvidia ones. they do scale better well too.

I wouldn't call it "way much better in ratio of money/performance."
4850 cost $200 each, compared to g92 8800gts's $120-160 each. And at
stock, the 8800gts can still match 4850's performance in most
benchmarks.

3dmark

UT3

Supreme Commander

Far Cry

Crysis

CoD4

The 4850 also runs hotter and does not overclock as well (7% compared to g92 8800gts's 20+%).

http://en.expreview.com/2008/06/24 [...] hd-4850/6/
This pushes g92 8800gts's performance level past 4850's and into 8800ultra level when overclocked.

The reason so many people perfer 4850 cf for new rig instead is not so
much because of the card itself, but rather because it requires high
performing x38/48 motherboard, instead of low performing and overpriced
Nvidia motherboard for sli. Nvidia used to force us who wanted high
performance to buy their crappy motherboard back when their graphics is
on top. Now, a lot of people are still bitter.