Get the 9800GTX+ from evga.com and preorder it for 199.00. It beats the 4850 and the 9800GTX very well.

Edit* It doesn't beat them very well, but for 199 it's enough to justify the premium over the 4850.

Larrymon2000

You would pay more for a card that doesn't perform better ?

Odd, I searched the internet for a bit and found that some people averaged 47 fps on a 4850 while others averaged 41 fps.

kudols

There's a difference between looking at what Fraps displays and using the Crysis benchmark. People's ego tend to over-estimate what average fps they see on the screen. ;)

Bad choice for a motherboard if you want to run Crossfire. P35 has x16 speed on pci-e slot 1 and x4 speed on slot 2. And it's pci-e 1.0 or 1.1.

If you want max performance with Crossfire get an X38 or X48 motherboard, as it will give x16 speed on both pci-e slots.

If you get a single HD4870, you better go with a P43 or P45 motherboard.

So it's my understanding that I can only put one ATI card in the said mobo?HessenKnight

Yes. Why not get an X38/X48 motherboard ? Intel motherboards are better.

GPU: Ati 4850 (just not sure which company is most reliable might either go with Gigabyte or Asus)d_player

Go with the Asus, it comes with a software (Smart Doctor) to control the fan speed. For some strange reason, the Gigabyte 4850 has a lower memory clock than the reference clock.

Not true, i believe you cna crossfire same series.

I.E.

4850 and 4870X2

ETC, they have the same architecture
rexs9

That's the correct answer.

If i go with the hd4850 would I have to go with a motherboard which supports Xfire and if so which motherboard would be a respectable choice? Since my total so far has reached 680.43 not including the GPU i have about 100 - 150 to spend on a motherboard.

Also which one is smaller the 8800gt or the hd4850?

d_player

No, you can have any motherboard that has a pci-express slot, even nForce ones. Go with a Crossfire mobo only if you plan on getting a 2nd card later, but a single hd4850 is powerful enough for 1680x1050 and even 1920x1200. With one card, there are no problems of scaling and microstuttering, and there's also less heat and power consumption. I suggest a P43 or P45 motherboard like this Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L (more choices here) for a single video card, or an X38 or X48 for Crossfire. The X38 and X48 motherboards are much more expensive though (200$+). Personally I prefer a single gpu over Crossfire/SLI.

The hd4850 is 9.25" long, i don't know about the 8800gt.

I just checked and the 8800gt is 9" long.

Also is the Ati 4850 much better then the 8800gt? d_player

The hd4850 is faster but how much faster depends on the game. It's 15% faster in Crysis, 34% in CoD 4 and 68% in Bioshock (according to AnandTech). Plus the hd4850 supports directx 10.1, but so far only Assassin's Creed has used dx 10.1.