9800 GX2 vs. GTX 280

[Fiberawptic]

Ok, so heres my situation, i have a motherboard with only one PCIe slot and i am gonna upgrade my GPU, so after doing lots and lots of research, i've come up with two very powerful cards that are within my price range. I want to know which one is overall better/ give me best performance when gaming. KEEP IN MIND IM TALKING ABOUT SINGLE CARD SOLUTION, I CANT SLI. So between 9800 GX2 and GTX 280, which will i get the best from? Thanks, i gotta make my desicion soon...

 

[Escaep]

Scratch off the GX2. From what i have heard it gets tremendous fluctuations in framerate and is not very stable. It you have to choose between those two only, get the 280. Or, look at the 4870, which is very close to the 280 in terms of performance.

Couple Q's:

What are your entire system specs?

What games do you plan on playing?

 

[Fiberawptic]

What are your entire system specs?

If you just want to make sure my computer setup will be compatible with the cards, no need to worry, ive spent the last 2 weeks doing so much research and talking to so many people. This is gonna be a bigger upgrade than just a GPU, im also getting a new case so it fits... I have a: HP Elite m9040n. Q6600 Intel Core 2 Quad @ 2.40 Ghz. 3 GB RAM, 32 Bit OS. 8400 GT GPU, a 700w PSU....

Games will be mainly FPS: Crysis, COD4, obviously Valve Games, Turok, and soo many others bro

Thanks

 

[Asus]

The 9800 GX2 is the best price performance option up there BUT it only really holds that position with the right drivers and certain games. Otherwise it just has 8800 performance in games that don't work all that well with SLI config. (9800 GX2 is SLI but just on 1 card). ALSO because it is 2 chips on a single card the cooling solution is maybe a little more complex and has trouble cooling well. I've heard a lot of 9800 GX2's fail and people end up trading it in for a single card like Nvidia or ATI's new cards.

I would be looking between an ATI 4870, Nvidia GTX 260 and a GTX 280. If you don't mind spending the money then the GTX 280 would be the pick. Although the price/perfomance ratio value isn't as good on that one. If you are stuck between the 9800 GX2 and GTX 280 then i'd say 280. More steady performance between games and less headaches.

 

[Bastion]

9800 GX2 has some bad stutter issues in some games due to the 512.