Help Me Choose!

[Dr. Malone]

Hi all.

I have an a8n32 sli deluxe and 4200 x2. I need to choose the best graphics solution for this board. I have the following choices; 4870 or 4850, SLi 9600's (single slot only please or I have to ditch one expansion card). Top whack is around 220 quid.

Which is the best for me? I have already finished crysis and have no plans to go there again, but I will play new games and older ones i haven't got round to yet, e.g. hellgate.

My psu is a hiper 580 sli certified, and monitor is a 22" LG, running vista32. I drive a lot of things off the psu (4 optical drives, 4 hdd's), before we even talk about expansion cards. My current setup uses an X1950. (AGP) with the same processor and I have been fine finishing bioshock, tomb raider anniversary, MoHA. Crysis struggled a bit but I completed it OK.

Two 9600's for ~150 sounds like a bargain but should I buy a single 4850 or 4870? SLI sounds great but it it? Anything else from nvidia i should consider?
Ideas please?

Thanks

 

[bilko100]

Single 4870

 

[TheCenturion]

seeing as you have an sli mobo, you could consider a gtx 260 aswell

 

[Tetras]

SLI sounds great but is it?

No.

Buy a single 4850/4870. You won't get full performance out of them (CPU bottleneck) but they will be reliable and always give the same performance level (SLI does not).