Buy 500$ vid card or upgrade complete system

[javimars]

alright here's my thing. i have roughly 600$ to burn so i was thinking of buyin the 4870x2 or the gtx95 when i comes out. but i read somewhere that dx11 should be around q2 09 and ati/nvidia are releasing new gpus. a friend gave me the idea that i should not get a dual card and instead buy the intel q9450/9550 and oc it to 4ghz+ and to buy a 260gtx or even a 4870 1gig. what do you pros think??!?
my set up is as follow

q6600 @ 3.6ghz
3gig ddr2 800 (going to buy 4gig ddr1064)
320gts 8800(i can play all the games i can think off at res of 16x10 but i want to play at native of 19x12, i have 24" and a 22". all high settings on but no aa i get great fps except for crysis)
850w psu
p120 case

 

[cal8949]

i would get a 2 gig 4850x2 for $330- 300 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102809

and a q9450. the processor you have should be good enough tho

 

[javimars]

you know my brother got a 4850 and we get same fps at 16x10 on just about every game we play (crysis, cod5, l4d, dead space, graw2) and its until we put on aa its where he goes ahead do to my video card not having enough vram. oh yeah i beat him on 3dmark06 by nearly 1k points. we have same system except the video card and he has ddr2 1064 ram. im a bit disapointed with the 4850, so i figure the 4870x2 should have at least 35% over his single 4850.( remember i mostly game on my 24" rather than my 22")

 

[coozie7]

Unless you are using a 64 bit OS, you`re wasting money on a memory change.
Go for either the 1Gb HD4870 or GTX260 (and, since you seem to be a keen overclocker, the 192 not 216 core variant and overclock it).

 

[javimars]

doh i have vista ultimate 64. the 192 version at 19x12? isnt the 4870 1gig a tab better? idk

 

[coozie7]

@JAVIMARS; OK, the memory will be a good idea
All three cards are close in performance and, as I said, you seem to be keen on overclocking, so I suggested the GTX260 192 core because it overclocks well enough to reach GTX280 performance.
The GTX260 216 is a little faster than the 192 but performance between it and the 1Gb Hd4870 is harder to call. I`d say if you use AA then go for the HD4870 because it handles AA better than the GTX260, if you do n`t use AA or very little, go for the GTX260.
I do n`t like multi-GPU setups and never will but, for sheer power, the HD4870X2 is currently the most powerful single card out there and, because it`s 2 HD4870 on one card it should fly, even on games that lack CF support.