I’ve been visiting the web site and enjoying the forums for a long time but haven’t posted until now. I’m getting ready to put together a new system and I’m looking for opinions regarding video card choice. When I first started researching components I was looking to get my hands on an 8800GT but with prices dropping recently, the 9800GTX has become more affordable (sub $200 which was where I set my price break for that component). My question is, would it be better for me to get a “souped up” version of the 8800GT (manufacturer overclocked, etc.) or go ahead and make the jump to the 9800GTX? I’ll be using the system mostly for writing and editing music but want to continue doing some moderate gaming as well. Any thoughts are welcome; thanks!

8800gt will do moderate gaming at 1680 x 1050, HD4850 will do it even better and is currently the best price/performance ratio.

Most manufacturer OC's really don't get you that much extra performance, yet cost you more money. So I don't think there's a good deal of support for that kind of thing unless you just happen to get it for a good deal.

I just looked at a 9800GTX benchmark review over at www.benchmarkreviews.com Looks like the 9800GTX rivals the 8800GT. Most of the benchmarks are pretty close, with the 8800GT slightly ahead sometimes, and the 9800GTX slightly ahead sometimes. Granted they were using a factory OC'd 8800GT.

Makes me think though. My 8800GTS is a G92 version, which typically benchmarks better than the 8800GT. So I want to see some benchmarks between my 8800GTS and the 9800GTX.