Peter.Cort
TF's First Dry Ice User!
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- 5,018
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- Boston, MA
look in the recommended parts list...
You should only be SLIing or Crossfiring, if you plan on playing games on a resolution higher than 1680 x 1050. If not, a single 9800GTX, HD 3870X2, or 8800GTS 512, will do the trick.
It also depends on which motherboard you're going with, because there are no motherboards that support both Crossfire or SLI (with the exception of the $600+ Skulltrail).
You have both a 22 and 24" monitor? And which will you be playing games on?
If you're planning to Xfire or SLI, obviously option 2 is out. Now the option that will give you the most performance, would be the two 9800GTXs. It's also the most expensive.
The 9600GTs have proven to scale very well in SLI.
Think of two 8800GTS 512s as two underclocked 9800GTXs, because that's basically what they are.
Crossifiring two 3870s would be equal or greater than the 9600GTs in SLI.
Dual GPUs and SLI could mean the same thing, unless you're talking about the HD 3870X2, which is dual GPUs on one card.
For the Intel motherboards, there so much to choose from, but they're not all that different from each other, in terms of performance. Just the features, is what sets them apart. But some suggestions for Xfire motherboards would be:
DFI DK X38-T2R or LP LT X48-T2R
Gigabyte EX38-DS4
ASUS P5E X38
ABIT IX38 Quad GT
ASUS Maximus Formula