[Solved] Graphics card to get

A single HD5850, especially if you overclock it should already be great for 1920x1080. Your motherboard was designed to be able to crossfire and yes it should handle 2 HD5850s when the time comes. It is not a particularly large card considering it's performance level.
The card I would recommend is the ASUS DirectCU HD5850. Here is a review;
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1273/1/
It has a very effective and quiet cooler and is one of the few custom HD5850s that allows for voltage modification of the core. The should allow for an overclock up to and past 1000mhz for performance well past a stock HD5870.
As for your other question I would use DVI as it is digital and should deliver a perfect signal while VGA is analog.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Would my 800 watt psu be able to handle 2 of those overclocked to their maximum stable settings?

Hmm, well I've run in to something.

The cheapest ASUS 5850 I could find is around 350$ tax/shipping included, however I could get a 5870 on amazon (tax/shipping is free) for 390-400.

Sapphire - http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Rad [...] 684&sr=8-2

XFX - http://www.amazon.com/RADEON-5870- [...] 765&sr=1-1

So basically its a ASUS 5850 for 340 (not 350 my bad) or a 5870
XFX - 390
Sapphire - 400
HIS? 385- (+ free modern warfare 2 which I could sell for about 35$)

One thing though is apparently the ASUS 5850 can clock to 1000 mhz core, while the others sit at about 900 cause they don't have unlocked voltage. I don't really fully understand core/shader/memory clock etc. I just want to make sure the 5850 isn't going to outperform the 5870s.

Also I want to make sure I'll be able to add a second in the future and run xfire.

I'm jumping ship on ASUS... theses HD 4770's were supposed to be for crossfire but as sone as one comes back the other goes... Should have a Sapphire 5850 toxic 2gb sometime tomorrow afternoon and will see how that does... oh my point... with these monster card lengths case size is important, my scout won't hold a 5870, will yours? 5850 is about 10 to 10.5 5870 is about 11 to 11.5 depending on manafacturer

The 5850 is supposed to be 10" I will measure i when it shows up. PureOC reviewed your case with a card measuring 11.5 http://www.pureoverclock.com/revie [...] 760&page=5 So you should be good on size after a cable reroute. Newegg provides manafactures 800# call and ask them card length to be on safe side (I did)
The only issue with crossfire is blocking the fan intakes. I used a Thermalright HR-03 Rev.A on the top card and solved that issue (wraps around the card and sits on top basically) Worked great except the Asus cards failing.

I have a ga-x58-ud5 in a storm scout case with a CM hyper n 520 cpu cooler and it fits but I don't see 2 5850's going in without replacing that top cooler with the thermalright.

Asus lost my vote I have the 5850 coming solely because I could not use my crossfire setup with there 4770's constantly crapping out. I only have 1 of them in my pc now and the other one is a paperweight at the moment because I need the stock cooler to send it back and that is on the one that works at the moment.... My own fault for not keeping the stock cooler I know but the cards shouldn't just die at stock settings... but the 5870 isnt going to give you a $100 improvement (says the guy that bought the 2gb model)

ditto thats why I went 5850, more concerned that the 6 series will be shorter and faster, as the die sizes keep shrinking.

I see that the 5850 is a better value except in this case where the 5870 would only be 10$ more once I sold the mw2 copy.

Haha bigger down there. I do understand that with 2x 5850/5870 the performance won't be much different in terms of what you can see, however I wont be getting a second card for another 2-3 years. Thats why I thought at the time for 10$ more it would be worth it. (And as for the MW2, they give you a code to download it on steam yes, but I have a friend that would be willing to buy that code)

The 2gb will help when/if you move up to an eyefinity setup or 2560x1600.

Best answer selected by 454xalucard.