My aim is to buy some good graphics cards, with a budget of under 300. Why? Because doing research, buying anything over 280-300, is going to get out-dated pretty damn fast. Look at ATI Radeon 4870 x2 CrossFire Ready cards. They're already outdated, and not even a year old in use.
I'm using a crappy GeForce 6600. My choice is either to go with a decent, cheap, card like the GeForce 9000 series, and upgrade as time goes on... or get a decent card like an ATI Radeon 5850, or 5870. On the other hand, we weigh the possibility of getting a geforce 9800 gx2. As I understand, a graphics card must be fast, rather than how much memory it has. My GeForce 6600 has 256 mb of memory, but what good is it if it barely serves for performance?
So I've been looking and I can't decide. I'm trying to aim for the 5850, but maybe there's a better alternative. I'm also looking towards the AMD sector, rather than intel.
Comparison. I want the most bang for my buck... as I don't plan to upgrade any time soon (maybe in a few years where the tech is below average for a gamer PC)
Cost for a single 5870 (256bit, 1gb, 850 and 1200 clock speeds): $390
Cost for two 5770 (256bitx2, 1gbx2, 850x2 and 1200x2 clock speeds): $380
Cost for two 5750 (256bitx2, 1gbx2, 700x2 and 1100x2 clock speeds): $260
Are any of these over-kill in any way? I'm curious, how important is the bus width (128 vs 256), or 128 per each card. Does it get utilized to the full extent?
Graphics Cards
