Just take a look at this....

GeForce 8800 GTX 786MB

NForce 680i SLi Motherboard

I can just picture a comp running on this hardware, and it gives me chills.... just imagine this as your comp's specs....

-Intel Core 2 Duo Quad-Core (2.66ghz per core and 8mb of L2 Cache)
-BFGTech NForce 680i SLi Motherboard (supporting up to 8GB of Dual-Channel DDR2 800 ram)
-2 SLi'd GeForce 8800 GTX's (with 768MG of GDDR3 and a clock speed of 575mhz each)
-and just slap on a BFGTech Aegia PhysX card for good measure

If it wasn't for all this equippment being worth 2-3x as much as my car, I'd get it.

The (true) next gen of gaming lies in the PC.
Neither PS3 or 360 could even TOUCH a comp with that setup.

and the fun thing is, those are available now, if not before the next next-gen console release

and even better, by the time that the newer-than-now consoles roll around, it'll be a fair price too.

those are SO awesome. the little rocks are a nice touch.

Im BACK!

Hold on a sec.. dont buy that yet. I know someone who has bought one already - lots of bugs. Plus there aint no DX10 games yet. Sure there maybe DX10 and Vista games that will take advantage of it, but not compeltely. Also you might want to wait for the third generation DX10 cards to make sure you get the best performance and least possible hardware bugs.

I know flight simulator x is DX10 compatible...

but meh, DX9 runs my junk, so I'm happy.

Well DX9 had 3 versions. DX10 completely replaces everything and is not backwards compatible on hardware. DX9 game swill work on DX10 systems using DX9. Only DX10 compatible and complaint games will run with DX10's new features and new DX10 hardware capabilities. So knowing this, you would come to conclude that as of this day, DX10 hardware is just a waste of your money unless you plan to get; Windows Vista, Halo2(PC), Crysis, MS FlightSimX, and UT2k7 next year which all would roughly cost you around over $1000 including the necessary hardware upgrades. Full upgrades with these DX10 games will probably eeach $2000. I can say that UT2k7 is the only game in that list im looknig forward to and that spending over $1000 for DX10 upgrades isnt worth one game.

The 9600 looks cooler, and uhh, can anyone say lots of money?

Say what? Actually, the 9800XT (ithink) is actually better than the X series and seconds to the ATi X1600.

Ofcourse, between the RX and the GeF6 families, the GeF6 is still better. Ofcourse we have our preferences. -(My RX700 actually runs UT2k4 or Unreal engine 2.5 based games better than either the 9800XT or the GeF6600- that explains why I can run AA better)

You should be looking towards a future GeF8600 card - that should give you DX10 for a more affordable price or wiat for ATi's first DX10 card which should generaly be cheaper by then.

I can get the 9600 for under $70 CAN on retail not Ebay (discounts not counted). The 9800 still costs as much as an X800 or X850 and around 1/3 the price of the X1600/X1800/X1900. If you will buy a card now, think twice because DX9 cards are phasing out once games start to utilize DX10. Basically buying a card at the turning point of a complete overhaul of graphics technology - DX10 - is just a waste of money so I suggest to everyone to wait until they can get even the second generation of DX10 cards/

If you will upgrade now however, all I would suggest is more ram, a better processor/s, or some other peripherals you might have wanted or just save up for a super powerful videocard and cooling system later on.

Lol, at this point, I have to upgrade, I am still running on either a built in GeForce 6100 (which is crap because it is built in) or a GeFroce 5500, which is getting so old it's hard to play any games within the last 2 years on good lvls. Americas Army still kicks butt on it though Lol, the M9 slide pulling back, and even a side view of it just looks amazing, the little M9 in my opinion, is the best put together weapon in AA. The M16 looks squarish in places and if you look at the sleeve on the arms for the older weapons (non SF) it looks like a mess of textures with a hand sticking out the end, but yeah, it still looks great I think, I seriously need to upgrade, I bought a new computer to build up on, it has one of those built in cards, so it won't accept older cards, I have to buy a 6600 or higher, ATI, I don't really know much about.

AA and UT2k4 based games run better on the ATi Radeon X700Pro and most likely the same for the ATi Radeon X1k series. If you will upgrade now might aswell make it worth it for the next 4 or 5 years - which im sure DX9 games will still be there - get the best you can get now -GeForce 7950 or Radeon X1950

Not to be picky but..... 'cough' Unreal 2 Engine 'cough' 'hack' 'cough'......

oh and btw, isn't UT2K4 supposed to be Nvidia Optimized?

Yeah I did mean UE2.5 games which are definetely UT2k4 based sicne the engine was developed for the Unreal Series. UE2.5 was optimized for nVidia, that was the days of the GeF FX, the performance tests I looked at were for the X700 and GeF6600 and the X700 beats the 6600 on UE2.5. - not by much but noticeable..

I'm happy with a card if it runs the game and looks okay. if it didn't lag like hell during any action, my built-in would be fine for HL2 (it'd blow for lost coast though.)

lol Lost Coast is just an overdo for a game. Like I always say, gameplay before graphics.