grahics card upgrade help

[moomoomoo]

I am looking to upgrade from my asus 8800 gts 640 mb to something new. In a few weeks. I have about 300 pound to spend could maybe strech to 400.

I am a bit confused at the differances between the 9800, 260, 280 cards.

I am happy with my current rig tbh, my pc seems to run all modern games fine apart from crysis.

my current rig

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6850 @ 3.00GHz (2 CPUs), overclocked ~3.6GHz
Memory: 4094MB RAM
Hard Drive: 320 GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 also over clocked

I game at 1280 1024, or 1680 1050 if my pc can handle it.

Would i see a big differance in perforamce, cause as i said my pc can handle most games i throw at it at the min how ever it would be nice to turn AA and such to the max. Are the top cards really worth 400 quid +, at the res i game at?

Or would i be better off waiting till prices comes down or something new comes along.Also are new the radeon cards any good, why are why they so cheap compared with the nivdia cards.

Are the radeon cards any good, why are they so cheap comapred with geforces.

Thanks for any help i may get.

 

[FrostedNipple]

Are the radeon cards any good, why are they so cheap comapred with geforces.

Yes, they are v.good, why are they so cheap? Probably because ATi have realised it is ridiculous to charge £400+ for a card that probably costs a tenner or less to produce.

 

[sushi_fiesta_57]

The new Radeon 4850 beats the 9800 GTX more often than not in benchmarks. I'm not sure where your GTS fits in, but the new (512 MB) GTS is only around 5 FPS slower than these cards, so I doubt you'd notice it.

If you really want to spend £300-400, that narrows you down to a 9800 GX2, 260GTX or 280 GTX. However, not even these cards run Crysis maxed out at 1600 x 1200 and be playable.

My suggestion would be to wait. Next week (I think) the 4870 is due to be released, by the end of July we'll have a 9800 GTX+ and by the end of August there will be a 4870 X2. Also, prices will drop and drivers will improved during that time.

 

[moomoomoo]

Thanks for the advice the ATI cards are temping 2 would be awesome, however i dont have a crossfire motherboard how does that affect performace with ATI cards.