4870 or 4850 CF - What's the best value ?

Yes, the 4850cf will produce much better performance than a single 4870. 2 4850 even outperform a single gtx280.

4870 is 20% faster than 4850/9800gtx/g92 8800gts(all 3 perform the same), but at $300, is 50% more than 4850/9800gtx and more than twice the cost of g92 8800gts.

But of course, if you get one 4870, you have room to cf another later. If you get 2 4850, there no room left.

One HD4850.

17" doesnt even need that power, 2 of them or more powerful cards would be a waste of money.

Exactly, if you keep your monitor for a year, you would already be able to get a lot more power at less money next year then if you bought a lot of power this year. Go with one 4850 now and save money so that when you get a new monitor you can get a second 4850 or a new single card, whatever offers better price/performance when you want to upgrade your monitor.

If GPU and games keep increasing in power/requirements, nothing will be of any value in 2 years anyway ... just a bit more than a year ago, you could get the best of the best, a 8800 Ultra, for about 800$, now you can get better results with a 300$ 4870.

Buy something decent now and do some upgrades now and then to another mid-range card. As many said, for 17" a single 4850 will be more than enough. Depending on the monitor you get, it will probably still be enough (most 22" screens have a resolution of 1680x1050 and the 4850 would deal with that).

Thanks for your insights.

The other day I bought a Sapphire 2900 HD Pro Silent Cool, bollocks is that card silent, it's like a thunderstorm, I put it with my P5W-DH Delxue board, I tried everything to get a signal work on my monitor, nothing did. I ended up building a new system and the card didn't give me a signal on a system that was fresh, lol. I'm going to go to the shop and give the card back and try get a different card and maybe another RaptorX drive, would Raid0 be worth it? It would be pointless to get 2 150GB WD Raptors and just get another 74gb Raptor instead of wasting money, I'm confusing myself big time!  

Here's my specs:

Intel Q6600
Asus P5Q3 Deluxe
2GB Corsair XMS-2 DDR3 1066mhz
1 WD Raptor X 74GB
2 Seagate 1TB
Hiper 750W PSU (From my old build but I think it's good enough)  
Antec P182 Case (I had the same case in a different color, P180, it's the most easiest and tidiest case I have ever used, would be nice if they had a few extra hard drive slots ^ ^ )

I guess the thread is right about not wasting money on a 4870, especially if the price is £54 cheaper. I will get a new monitor one day when I get the chance but they are so expensive still for hardly a gain, my monitor is only 17"

So I ask, will the 4850 card work on my machine and will the card be good with resolutions higher then 1680x1050 22" monitors?  

Is the card noisy?   I hate it when the noise is louder then the music I'm playing, at the moment my PC is quite silent.

I'm going to sleep, will be up at 11 hopefully and out the door to the shop! This board is really nice, it's so convenient. 6 sata ports aswell as an extra 2 for raid, many usbs on the back, the only need for me on the PCI slots is a good sound card for producing music and a graphics card, I'll be set!  

Respect to everyone out there  

Higher than 1680 x 1050 and it is going to start to show its limitations, especially when AA and AF are cranked up.

The card is however noisy, and hot. It really needs a 3rd party cooler (of which there are many good cheap ones) otherwise it will be heating up your case and putting other components at risk.

I don't know what card to get then   What would you recommend?

Holy thread hijack batman!
Create your own thread, or at least have the decency to reply to the original topic.

To TC: What games do you plan on playing?

There aren't many games I've found that I've liked. I mainly watch movies but it's always nice to have the capability to play games in full res, if I game is comes out which is good enough for me to play!   I have a 17" monitor now but eventually in the future I will buy a 24", the main thing for me is the noise, my PC is so silent even when the fans are at full power the noise couldn't be compared to the Sapphire HD 2900 Pro card.