Dual Nvidia geforce 9800gt 512mb vs Single ATI Radeon 4870 1GB

I'm a bigger fan of running one good card, over multiple lesser cards. Frankly, the performance gains aren't 100%. Two cards doesn't really give you double the FPS. And some games do better with SLI/X-Fire than others. Some games it doesn't even really matter.

Personally I'd probably vote for 1 x 4870 1GB.

To give you an idea, follow this link. Took me about 30-60 seconds to do this. Granted this shows 1 x 4870 512MB, but it gives you an idea. 8800GT = 9800GT.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] 1,749.html

Shows results with Crysis 1.21 @ Very High 1920x1200. Look at the 8800GT, 8800GT SLI, and 4870 results.

thanks for the link.

I think the with 4870 1gb, the performance will be either the same or just a bit below the 4870. That gives me a good idea of where it performs because theoretically speaking I'm expecting that 4870 to perform 2x 9800gt.

Keep in mind that the ave may be the same or slightly higher for the dual gpu setup. But the min/max is lower/higher. The single card will most likely have a higher minimum frame rate, but a lower maximum. That being said, a higher minimum is the most important for consistantly smooth frame rate. I'll also vote for the 4870.

I voted for the 4870 in my last sentence.