Which card setup is best in this situation...

[bubbleman441]

So I'm looking to build a new gaming PC. I want all games to be able to run on pretty high settings. My goal is to produce at least 120fps (at least try to in as many games as possible) so it can take advantage of my 22" 120hz Samsung monitor.
I've decided to go with the Intel core i7 920 and 6gb of DDR3 ram. As far as the video card goes I don't want to spend much more than 300. I did look at the charts on this site to compare FPS with different GPUs.

I was looking into the Geforce GTX 285 and liked what I saw for the price. My question to you is, for gaming on a 22" monitor, would I get better performance from two Sapphire Radeon HD 4870s Crossfire'd together or just sticking with the one GTX 285?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4385445&CatId=3669

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4459666&SRCCODE=PRICEGRABBER&cm_mmc_o=2mHCjCVybgwTyz__wyCjCVqHCjCdwwp

I am open to suggestions if anyone has a better setup for around the same price.

Thanks

 

[stonebattle]

Either would be a good choice. It depends on what games you play. You may want to also consider a HD4890. This will give you great perfomance now and allow you an opportunity to crossfire the later on. Check out the benchmarks on this sight.

 

[coozie7]

You might want to turn down your expectations a little, 120 fps is very, very fast and only a very high end system will get close to that speed, even with AA disabled.
You might find this useful:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gtx285sli-hd4890cf.html

My advice is to get the fastest single card you can, a huge PSU, and add another card later.

 

[AKM880]

IMO opinion, I my self would go for the GTX285, but as stonebattle mentioned you can take alook into the 4890.

 

[bubbleman441]

Yeah thanks guys. It looks like the Radeon HD 4890 might be best for me. Also, when crossfiring two cards together, I understand they don't have to be the same model correct? However I heard something about them having to be in the same series... does that mean I could crossfire the HD 4890 with any other 4800 or what? Lastly, when two different cards are crossfire'd, I heard that your system only recognizes the weakest card or something??

 

[coozie7]

Yes, you can CF different cards of the same series, one poster here is running a HD4870 and HD4850 in CF.
Yes, the faster card will be cut back to match the slower, and if one card has 1Gb of memory and the other 512Mb, the 1Gb card will 'lose' half its memory.
As with SLI, the best way is to keep the cards as similar as possible, identical is even better.

 

[bubbleman441]

Thanks, that helped me out a ton. I'll probably end up building the computer with the HD4890 in august. Hopefully by then, something new comes out and prices drop even further.