Best PCI-E Card For ~$290

The 8800 GTS is essentially an 8800 GT with a little more firepower; it sports 128 universal shaders compared to the GT's 112. It bests its 8800 GT brother, but not by much, and it's more expensive - in most cases the GT will suffice, but if you have ~$300 to spend, this is your card. At higher price points than this performance increases taper off quite a bit, and you'll only really see benefits at 1920x1200 or higher resolutions.

Best PCI-E Card For ~$360: Tie

While multi-card solutions are far from perfect, they can offer significant performance increases for those with a high budget who demand high-resolution gaming performance.

At ~$360, two Radeon 3870 cards are about $100 cheaper than a single dual-GPU Radeon 3870 X2 card. Since the performance is pretty much identical, two cards are the way to go.

Two 9600 GT cards in an SLI configuration will offer a similar price/performance ratio to two Radeon 3870 cards in a crossfire configuration. Either way, performance is unprecedented at the ~$360 price point.

Best PCI-E Card For ~$460

Frankly, the performance increase of two 8800 GTs over two 9600 GTs is usually not worth mentioning, but there are a handful of games where the 8800 GT will win by a notable percentage at high resolutions. If high resolution gaming with high image quality options enabled is your forte, and budget isn't a concern, two 8800 GTs might be justifiable for you.