out of the loop - which card to buy

[ergonomics]

Hello.

Ive been totally out of the loop now, especially on GFX progress over the past year due to uni. however with some good titles coming out and my current system causing a few issues here and there (and some money in the bank) id like to upgrade my gfx card.

ive read through some threads, and it appears the GTX 280 is the 'best' in terms of power atm.

I have 2x 8800GT's, but i know at least 1 is giving me issues with constant artifacting, and motherboard limitations are now causing problems in terms of overclocks etc.

if i wanted to be able to run farcry 2, at High at 16x10 (and most forthcoming titles for that matter at that res), is the GTX 280 worth the extra cash?

id rather stick to NV just because of preference, and also i dont want to go for another sli set up, as overclocking my cpu is a must now.

i dont really have a budget per say, but obviously dont recomend 'QUAD GTX 280's' just because i havent said a set limit lol.

Thanks

 

[TheRealDeal]

Has to be a gtx280 as you already have 2x8800gt which will be around the same speed as a gtx280 when sli is working nicely. If you wanted a real big upgrade would have to have been a 4870x2. For farcry 2 though and at your resolution a gtx280 should run the game nice and smooth.

 

[ergonomics]

yeah the 2x 8800gt's, with the accelero S1 coolers were (and still are) smashing cards.

but then, sli wasnt 100% consistent, and my motherboard was slowing cpu overclocks, so it nullified having an awesome gpu set up, as it was almost always limited.

the more i read through threads however, the more i see about the 4850x2 being awesome.

hmmm...