8600GT worth upgrading?

While i love my games and my current xfx 8600 zalman 256mb edition lets me run everything iv'e thrown at it on medium settings from todays range of games.

I've been given the opertunity to get another of these cards i could SLI for £43 which is cheaper than anywhere else i could find this card, but of course befor buying a second one for SLI i know im still going to be stuck on 256vram but i cannot find any card that would give me a better upgrade alternative for the same price.

I know it might be helpful to know what games i do/would like to play and so:

Currently, Savage 2, Unreal tournament 2008, C&C3 Kains Wrath and Age of conan (which this card handles far better than i expected)

Would like to play, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Spore.

I just dont want to be stung by thinking SLI is the answer and up to 90% improoved performance as labled could be anything and i've head a few stories of only minimal gains from SLI and with a tight budget at the moment, i dont want to throw my cash down a potential SLI toilet.

Often i see a good bit of advise floating arround here and as a forum search for 8600GT revealed nothing usefull i thought i's ask, hoping some of you who are more well informed than myself might have a suggestion.

My thanks to any and all who read/reply

SLI'ed 8600GT does not offer much of a performance boost to justify the cost; performance still sucks.

SLI is worth it only for the high end cards in my opinion 'cause the only to get better performance is to link an identical card (as an example, there is no single nVdia card that will beat a 280 GTX).

Save up some money, even if it is only a few £ per week, eventually you will be able to a single faster GPU that can beat two 8600GT SLI'ed without breaking a sweat.

take a look at the 4850's - well worth it massive jump in performance

Buying another 8600gt is a very bad way to spend £43. You can pick up an 8800gt (new) for about £80 now and that will offer much better performance. If thats too much then grab a 8800gt or similar off ebay.

I've had two 256mb 8600 GT in SLI before and its not at all thrilling, it was actually quite a let down, i still couldn't push Crysis more than med settings with no AA, which is why i ordered a 9800GT, which should be here soon, if i were you just hold out and save up for an 8800GT or better, and don't buy a card with less than 512MB of mem either, 256 is the new 128, 256MB just doesn't cut it anymore

I'd personally choose the 8800 GT since its cheaper and the same banana. but at the same time look for a 4850, since it will be even better than the 8800 GT, and some do cost around the same.

Plus you'll have DX 10.1, and Star Craft 2 will have that Woohoo (diablo 3 as well if I'm not mistaken )

I think it's funny everyone just push for an 8800gt or better. However the one defining characteristic between even just 8600gt&8800gt is one requires 1.0 PCIex bus and other needs 2.0 PCIex bus. As all geforce chipsets after the 8600 ver. were on a 2.0 interface card. Now I will agree that you will get far better speed/performance from a card with a 2.0 PCIex bus interface but when it comes to cost does your system support that(2.0 PCIex interface). As I don't know the damage that is done when 2.0 PCIex card is put in 1.0 PCIex slot.