General questions regarding the GTX 470

If your PSU is up to the task and your ambient hovers around (74/75F) then yes the 470 is a great buy @ 299.99$. If this is not the case then the 5850 will do just fine. I had a 470 and it was great, the only downside was the fact that it raised my room temps by over 10c after 3 hours of gameplay so i had to get rid of it and now use a 5850 which runs about 25/26c cooler than the 470 @ load.

You didn't specify what case you have.

No bottleneck on your dualie @ 4Ghz unless the game/app uses more than 2 cores.

The card's heat is normally exhausted through the rear of the card and out, unless you purchased a non-reference version which does release all the hot air inside your case.

I have the same video card you're looking at. Just installed it a week ago. Loving it performance wise. It does indeed run very hot. With "Auto" fan settings it'll push 94/95C with a Furmark bench running @ 86% fan speeds. It does get fairly loud unless you crank your audio up higher.  

The GTX 470 should indeed surpass the ATI 5850 (especially with the newest drivers).

As far as MSI is concerned, I've had 4 or 5 MSI video cards over the years (just owned 2 MSI GTX 260's for example) and I've personally never had a problem with them.

The GPU itself should not affect your CPU OC, as it is designed to vent it's hot air out the back of your case. So theoretically, it should not be creating too much ambient heat inside the case. With proper ventilation inside the case itself, you should be good to go. The biggest thing is having enough cool air intake to feed cool at to the video card in the first place.  

I don't think your E8500 @ 4Ghz should create a bottle neck for you with a single GTX 470. However, some new games like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 do seem to like Quad Core processors. But your high clock speed should keep you fairly safe so long as it's stable.

EDIT: By the way, I used MSI Afterburner to activate an adjusted fan speed curve. I've forced it to spool up the fan speed at a lower temp than default, which has helped keep it cooler. The card utterly destroys Resident Evil 5 (I got a free download from nVidia via a coupon in the MSI GTX 470 box. Though that coupon says it expired "6/30/10 or until supplies last". Still worked as of 7/1/10.)

I appreciate the responses guys. It looks like newegg has removed that deal for $299 though unfortunately. So, I'll have to reconsider a bit. They have an EVGA for $330, and I really like that brand, so that may still be an option.

Unless you can't stand it, just wait a bit, another good deal will likely creep up. A couple weeks ago there was one for $274.99

That's true as well. I'm not in much of a hurry. I can run most everything I need to fine at the moment. Just thinking of some possible upgrades to help with some of the high profile games coming out this year and early next year