Video Card Dilemma, need advice

My brother is asking me about video cards for his computer, he isn't satisfied with the 2 cards he has installed:

Nvidia GeForce 8500GT 512MB w/DVI + TV Out Video

He is wondering whether 1 or 2 MSI 8600GTS 256MB SLI cards would give him better gaming performance, those 2 are 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Cards..

He has an ASUS M2N-E mobo with 2GB of memory and AMD Athlon64 X2 4800+ Dual-Core CPU

He is a little worried his SLI mode isn't working right, but one issue he mentioned was that NWN2 was suffering big hits in strongly lit areas in the game, the FPS drops from 30-50 to the teens in those areas... He says he has the newest patches for the game..

Would he be better off upgrading his video cards to 1 or 2 better cards? I thought he might go with 1 or 2 8600GTS 256MB video cards, more because I missed his 512MB spec the first time..

He is on a limited budget, no more than about $150-$200 bucks.. is there any hope for him or is his mobo the main problem instead of his video cards for running stuff like NWN2 or EQ2?

Any advice is appreciated..

Your "brother" just made the same thread(or similar): http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25995093

Don't need to make another one.

8500 is the "5200" of the 8 series. Not only that, SLI is pointless unless you're SLI'ing 8800 ultras.d-rtyboy

Your "brother" just made the same thread(or similar): http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25995093

Don't need to make another one.

SSJBen

Well I made it before he did, and I found the site and recommended it to him, so we don't live in the same room and he doesn't ask my permission to post, nor does he know I posted or under what name, so thanks but no thanks for the "late" advice. You're a day late and a dollar short.

Thanks to the people who actually helped out and didn't waste space in this thread pointing out the obvious (to them).

Cheers!

Heh heh, now that I posted my flame reply.. (grin)... I wanted to especially thank SSJBen and the others for their info in my brothers post.. even got me thinking since my own hardware is getting there in age.

Keep up the great support for those of us who come across as mean sometimes..

You guys have a great one!