Time for an upgrade...

I generally agree with SCHWARZE-4. The system you are looking to *upgrade* to is really not that big of a step for the money. With the system you already have, you should be able to play any game (other than oblivion) at 1280x1024 with all the eye candy on high. Upgrading to AM2 and an X2 processor is actually going to get you about equal performance to your current setup. X2's have nice mutlithreading abilities, but you will only notice that with running multiple apps at once, and not any receiving any measureable benefit in gaming.

Waiting for the Vista transition is not a bad idea, but if you do want to upgrade now, do yourself a favor and go Core2Duo. Buy the cheapest processor, a Gigabyte DS board, and overclock to ~2.7Ghz on the stock cooling. You won't be disappointed and your performance should increase 30% or more.

Upgrading your graphics card right now is not a horrible idea. With a 7800GT, you shouldn't need much more horsepower. However, if you do (for Obilivion?), don't sell yourself short. Truly upgrade and pick up a 7950 or a 1950XT. They are great cards and only these will show significant improvement over your current card. I'm afraid the card you linked would only get you about a 5-10% improvement, which to me doesn't seem worth the $$$$s.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Sharath

The 7900GX2 has a similar performance as the 7900 GT ..maybe there arent games to exploit the card

This isnt quite accurate. First it's the 7950GX2 and yes, at times it is only as powerful as a 7900GT because it isn't able to use both GPUs in some games. This is an Nvidia driver issue if I remember correctly, and thus it will probably be fixed on most huge games in the near future.

Sorry to spoil the Nvidia party boys, but I do have to say that ATI's cards have seemed very superior to the green team's lately. The HighQ AF is very sweet, and the Performance ADAA gives great anti-aliasing with less hit on frame rate. They've got a great line up now as well that seems to beat Nvidia equivalents at almost every level. The X1650 Pro at $99, the X1950 Pro at $199, the X1900XT 256MB at $249, and the X1950XTX $ $449. It seems to me its a good fit at any price.

Just wanted to throw out the Red side a bit in this very green thread. If you have issues with ATI stuff and don't like 'em fine. Many people don't have these issues however and these cards do come pretty highly recommended.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Crossfire is basically ATI's SLI. Here's the quick skinny.

The X1950XTX is a single-GPU card, and actually the fastest single-GPU available for gaming. The Geforce7950GX2 is a dual-GPU card that only uses one PCI-E slot. These two cards are really neck-to-neck performance wise. They are the fastest single slot (PCI-E) cards available.

Nvidia and ATI both offer solutions for dual-GPU on 2 PCI-E slots for even higher possible performance. These are called SLI and Crossfire respectively. SLI and Crossfire are basically two PCI-E cards running simultaneously that output to the same screen.

Generally speaking, SLI/Crossfire are only good in 2 scenarios. Either you have no budgeting issues and want the best so you run two uber-fast cards, or you want to be able to buy one card, and then add another card later to "upgrade" as you need instead of "replacing" old cards. Personally, I think that SLI/Crossfires are kind of a waste for the budget minded gamer. Because if you buy a X1950XTX now, two years from now when you need better performance, you are going to want the new technology card not to buy another X1950XTX. On top of that, buying one lower level card (such as a X1950 Pro) and adding one later will barely equal the performance of one X1950XTX. And with how fast new cards are coming out these days, it doesn't seem like replacing cards is such a bad idea.

Back to your choices: You need to know how much performance you want. If you want great performance at 1600x1200 (or 1680x1050) and lower resolutions, a single card such as the X1950XTX is probably all you would need. If you want to run higher resolutions such as 1920x1200, a SLI or Crossfire setup with 2 cards such as two 7900GTX's might be better for you. Buying two lower grade cards such as two 7900GTs and running them in SLI is generally not going to be much better than one 7900GTX. Especially considering the performance/dollar.

SLI and Crossfire also require specialized motherboards to run them. So either you would need a ATI Xpress Crossfire chipset or an Nvidia NForce SLI chipset on your mobo to run a dual-slot SLI/Crossfire setup. This is another hassle with SLI/Crossfire not to mention having a PSU big enough to run 2 power-sucking cards.

I hope this info gives you a little insight (opinionated insight ) into Crossfire/SLI.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.