upgrade sugestions

[katalyst]

ok i am looking to upgrade right now i am running the following.

q6600 at stock
xigmatek hdt-s1283
abit ip-35e
corsair 650w
wd 500gb
gskill 2gb 800mhz
8800 gts 320
antec 900
audigy 2
dell 17" lcd

i am looking to add a bigger monitor and add more graphics muscle i have looked around a bit a sli and crossfire configs.
i am looking at a 22" 1680x 1050 but the 24" isnt too much more but will limit my graphics upgrade
i am going for 750i for sli or p45 for crossfire the x48 and 780 are too expensive
gpu options
2x 8800gt
2x 9800gtx
1x 9800gx2
2x hd4850
or keep the ip-35 and get a single card
and i might look into 2x4870 but that is pushing the budget alittle far
any advice would be helpful

[Heretic]

I'd take 2x4850 over 2x9800gtx and 2x8800gt over both of those if the price is right (100 or less per gt. The g92 gts is currently 120 after rebate at fx). The gx2 is still not a good value from what I've seen. If it's primarily a gaming system, you might want to stick with 22" as the 24" will be a lot harder to drive and will only get harder as time goes on and new games come out. Moreover, with the 22" you can get away with a single card solution depending on what you play.

[katalyst]

ok i have been looking more and not really into nvidias offerings and crappy chipsets so is the 4870 cf worth the extra 200 over the 4850cf on a x48 boardand is my psu big enough to handle it.

[Heretic]

With a 22" 4870 cf isn't worth it; with a 24" it's debatable, but I'd still go for the 4850 cf. Your PSU is fine for 4850 cf but may need an upgrade for 4870 cf.

[zfactor]

well at 300$ after rebates for dual 4850's or over 600$ at current pricing for dual 4870's im not sure its worth the difference imo

[katalyst]

would the 4850s run fine on a p45 in crossfire because i read in the forums that they max the bandwith of the p45 but dont take a proformance hit where as the 4870 needed the full 16x

[Heretic]

I've only seen the one article at Tweaktown where the P45 takes a performance hit under 4850 CF and it's most prevalent at extremely high resolution (2560x1600). I haven't seen any other verification of this, but if you want to be safe and more future proof, you may as well go with the x48.

[katalyst]

so the best bang for the buck right now is dual 4850s on an x48 and a 22" monitor and that would get me some good proformance over my 320

[Heretic]

Yup. If you don't mind ebay, you can use the Microsoft cash back program to get an even better price on the 4850s. The discount is currently at 25%. Here's the thread at hardforum explaining it: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1316363