New video card selection

[Jaged]

My birthday is comming up on the 23rd of this month. I plan on getting a new top of the line video card. I know shit about video cards though. What are the best ones on the market today? I assume most of you will say that I should get a radeon 9800. If that is the case what is the difference between the pro and xt? If there is a better card then the 9800 (I am almost positive there is nothing better.) then what would it be? Also, are any cards comming out soon that I should hold out for that would be even better then anything out today?

Edit: Another semi-unrelated question thats now worth a new thread. Could you guys suggest and websites that sell computer cases? The one I have looks like shit. Also, any specific brands of cases that look cool and are high quality.

[Daleon]

The two top of the line cards out or coming out soon are:

ATI XT800 PE
NV 6800 Ultra Extreme

Because of demand and lack of availability, if you can find an XT800 PE its going for $550-600. The Ultra Extreme will prolly be even more.

$600 is personally getting stupid in my opinion. I'll dish out $400 for a top of the line video card any day of the week. May even push close to $500 if it really proves to be worth it. But so far there is only 1 game that puts a smack down on my 9800 Pro, DM3 ofcourse, and its more than playable single player 1024/Ultra and almost beat it. Not to mention 9800 Pro's will prolly handle HL2 rather well. So I'm finding it hard to find a good reason to spend this much. Instead, checking out a rather nice 19" Sony LCD they got at CC right now for about $700 with a 12 ms refresh and XBrite tech or the Dell fp2001 20". Maybe around Xmas when Stalker, Eq2, etc are out and most of my games are going to slow the prices will be better.

[Octavian]

From what I've heard there's a 25% difference between the 9800 Pro and XT. The Pro will give you your moneys worth, but you decide.

P.S. I'm pretty sure I heard your b-day was on the 24th.

[Jaged]

So the XT is better then the pro? What about an nvidia card? Are they worth looking at? There has to be other companies to consider.

P.S. If I ever said the 24th it was probably a typo.

[Daleon]

There is a big performance difference between the X800 Pro and the X800 XT. Not the 9800 Pro and 9800 XT. Only about a 2-3% difference most of the time on 9800's.

[MrPaul]

Just wondering, on a related note, how does the "GeForce 6800 Ultra V9999 Deluxe" compare to the 9800 XT?

[Rbstr]

much better, thats in teh same clas as the X800 XT

[Corrosion]

Just get a Geforce 6800 Ultra GT and overclock it.

Doobz has one and he plays Doom 3 on ultra with max-est settings and it runs completely smooth.