1 good graphics card or 2 average ones?

[gl600]

Hello,
I am building my first gaming computer (it's very exciting as i'm sure you all know). I was wonder wheather i should get one Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS – 640 mb or 2 Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT - 512 MB. Any advice out there?

Thanks!

P.S. The following is my build so far, any comments or recommendations?:

Motherboard
ASUS Striker - nForce 680i; 1066/800/533; 4 x DDR2 800/Dual; 2 x PCI-Ex16; 2 PCI; 2 Exp; 1 x 133 + 6 x SATA; 8 ch. Audio; 2 x nvidia 1 Gig LAN; Raid; 4+6 USB

Processor
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 2.4 ghz (LGA775); 1066 FSB; 8mb+ Zalman CNPS7500-CU LED CPU Fan

Memory
2 x 1 GB DDR2 800 Mhz

Graphics
Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS – 640 mb DDR3; 1600 mhz clock speed; DVI; TV-O; VGA

Hard Drives
2 x 250 gb Western Digital 8 mb cache

Sound Card
Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer series

DVDRW
NEC 20x – SATA

Case
Zalman Fatality FC-ZE1 pure aluminum (black) + 600 watt Zalman Power Supply

O/S
XP Home
-

 

[maroon1]

Actually, one 8800GT 512MB performs better than one 8800GTS 640MB

I recommend 8800GTS 512MB, because it cheaper than 8800GTS 640MB and it performs better than both

Newegg.com - BFG Tech BFGE88512GTSE GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

Also, get one 500GB hard drive instead of two 250GB
Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

 

[Kisskerven]

heres a list of how they rank - http://www.techist.com/forums/f76/graphics-card-rankings-139202/

and honestly id get the 8800GTS 512 (G92) over either choice- cheaper then the 2 GT for sure, and unless your Dual monitoring or something crazy you shouldn't need 2 GT. and theres some new cards coming out that may change the tables around so if you can hold out a few weeks, keep in touch and see what changes, at least the price will for sure.


and this bad boy was reccomended to me when I asked something similar: Newegg.com - BFG Tech BFGE88512GTSE GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

**EDIT** Maroon you musta been typin the same time as me LOL.

and about the HDD, unless you plan on doing some immense data saving.. like installing EVERY game you own and such, its highly reccomended to get 1 good drive for games/installs/etc and 1 smaller, fast HDD for OS and such - say around 20GB. and put the page file on the game drive (thers a big topic on this somewhere in the forum) Iam planning to get a 500GB (the one he has linked there) and a 120GB- parting the 120 into 3 sections, OS being one of them.

 

[baron5]

forget the striker not sure if still is, but that mobo is extremely overpriced. get a decent p35 mobo liek the gigabyte ds3r or abit ip35

 

[veedubfreak]

Heh i was at microcenter the other day, the striker is 389 bucks there. Just get a single GT or GTS512. SLI is overrated. I only have it because of that stupid 3dmark06 list and i like tinkering.