Well, that was I bad idea.

If you buy the ultra for $400 and sell your GTS for I don't know,say $200 (at newegg a new one is around $290) it would mean that at the end you are paying $200 net for a rough average of %12 increase in performance. But if you buy another GTS for $290, ($90 more) and SLI it you can get the typical increase of SLI which is of course more than the difference between an ultra and a GTS. Of course, this is if you have a SLI capable motherboard (I still don't know how to see someone's signature here:?)

[QUOTE="bandieramonte"][QUOTE="Mizarus"][QUOTE="bandieramonte"]

Friend the BEST bang of the buck you can get for video cards right now is to set up two 8800 GT's in SLI. At newegg these two cards cost only $10 more than one 3870 X2 and perform an average of 15% better.

So for almost the same price you get even better performance. Now, the bad things of the GT's are that they are noisy and heat up a lot, diminishing overclocking capabilities.

So, if you want to spend more for better quality cards, I recommend two 8800 512Mb GTS SLI. These ones cost more than the GT's but perform even better, reach lower temps thanks to their dual slot cooling, which means that you can overclock more and get even more potential, and are less noisy. Two GTS's kill one 3870 X2.

Two 8800 512Mb GTS are by far one of the best choices out there for the moments. But for a lower budget go for two GT's.

And forget about the GTX, they perform about the same as the GTS costing more. This is a bad choice, they were good back in 2006.

Mizarus

it will require a much more powerful and expensive PSU thus being way more expensive then what you posted

Yes that is right, I forgot to say that too. But I think that the differences in power consumption between a 3870 X2 and two 8800 GTS 512Mb is not that much considering that the 3870 X2 also has two GPU's to feed. So I think that $50 is the difference in both PSU cases (I'm speculating) We would need to research PSU prices oh well....

yep, other then that you are right, a 8800GTS SLi (as long as it is the new 92 chip) will have a considerable better performance then a 3870x2, still i woudnt buy a SLI or CrossFire setup myself, i really dont think its worth it, a mid/high end single card is all i need.

Right. It all depends on the level of graphical quality and performance one wants. The better the performance and graphical quality altogether, the more money is needed. The more money you spend, the better cards you get. But it's really important to know how to spend the money in video cards.

So here I made a simple and brief categorization of cards according to their graphical quality&performance and of course, their price tag. This is, only IMO, the best way to spend in video cards depending on the money you are willing to spend on this

Brutal High End (the worst bang for the buck, really and ONLY because 3-Way SLI wont scale 300% Imagine if it did :o)

3 Ultras => $2250

Very Very High End

8800 GTS G92 SLI => $580 OR 8800 GT 512Mb SLI => $440

Very High End

3870 X2 => $450

High End

8800 GT 512Mb => $220

Mid/High End

ATI 3850 512Mb => $185

This last card has the crown for the bang for the buck ratio, being preceded by the 8800 GT 512Mb. Not even think of buying 3 ultras. By the price of 3 ultras one can set up a whole monster gaming machine.

This is my personal opinion and the product of all the research I did to buy my personal high end gaming machine.

I hope this helps to your decision.

[QUOTE="bandieramonte"]

Friend the BEST bang of the buck you can get for video cards right now is to set up two 8800 GT's in SLI. At newegg these two cards cost only $10 more than one 3870 X2 and perform an average of 15% better.

So for almost the same price you get even better performance. Now, the bad things of the GT's are that they are noisy and heat up a lot, diminishing overclocking capabilities.

So, if you want to spend more for better quality cards, I recommend two 8800 512Mb GTS SLI. These ones cost more than the GT's but perform even better, reach lower temps thanks to their dual slot cooling, which means that you can overclock more and get even more potential, and are less noisy. Two GTS's kill one 3870 X2.

Two 8800 512Mb GTS are by far one of the best choices out there for the moments. But for a lower budget go for two GT's.

And forget about the GTX, they perform about the same as the GTS costing more. This is a bad choice, they were good back in 2006.

Mizarus

it will require a much more powerful and expensive PSU thus being way more expensive then what you posted

Yes that is right, I forgot to say that too. But I think that the differences in power consumption between a 3870 X2 and two 8800 GTS 512Mb is not that much considering that the 3870 X2 also has two GPU's to feed. So I think that $50 is the difference in both PSU cases (I'm speculating) We would need to research PSU prices oh well....

Friend the BEST bang of the buck you can get for video cards right now is to set up two 8800 GT's in SLI. At newegg these two cards cost only $10 more than one 3870 X2 and perform an average of 15% better.

So for almost the same price you get even better performance. Now, the bad things of the GT's are that they are noisy and heat up a lot, diminishing overclocking capabilities.

So, if you want to spend more for better quality cards, I recommend two 8800 512Mb GTS SLI. These ones cost more than the GT's but perform even better, reach lower temps thanks to their dual slot cooling, which means that you can overclock more and get even more potential, and are less noisy. Two GTS's kill one 3870 X2.

Two 8800 512Mb GTS are by far one of the best choices out there for the moments. But for a lower budget go for two GT's.

And forget about the GTX, they perform about the same as the GTS costing more. This is a bad choice, they were good back in 2006.

This is probably fake and used to cheat us.

One ultra does not cost $900 each ;)

But anyways, if you did really spend $8000-9000 for this system, then IMO you could have saved half of this money and get the same performance by choosing wisely. You should have waited till Nvidias 9xxx series, or even if you were too desesperated, you could have crossfired two 3870 X2's and probably have similar performance than 3 ultras, for $1200 less only on video cards.

I personally own two 8800 GTS G92's and I can really recommend this SLI setup even more. But, take in account that you must be prepared to spend $600. But, believe me, it's really worth it.

Anyways, the GT's are a better bang for the buck than the new GTS. I bought this cards because I wanted even better performance.

But if I could only spend less than $500 on video cards, I'm 100% sure I would have gone with two GT's.

At newegg, two 8800 512Mb GT's cost $10 more than a single 3870 X2. This is 2.22% more expensive. At the same time, if you watch the following review from Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3209&p=5 you will see that 8800 GT SLI performs a rough average of 15% better. Here is where I can demonstrate the best bang for the buck that this SLI configuration is.

This is my advice. Sure, as Thinker said, you may also try with only one 8800 GT. This is even a BETTER bang for the buck considering that SLI doesn't scale even 50% in the majority of the games.