Im looking to upgrade my old 8800gtx very soon. Money won't be an issue so it doesnt matter how expensive it is. Ive been looking at these 2 cards so far.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127567

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127564

I am currently running these system specs

AMD Phenom II x4 945
MSI 770-G45 mobo
8GB DDR3 ram
80GB intel SSD HD
EVGA 8800gtx SLI
PC Power and Cooling 750watt PSU
Windows 7 64 bit
My case is the Antec 1200(lots and lots of cooling in this case)

Is the 580 really worth it, or is the 570 more than enough? I want to eventually go SLI with these as well. I really like the dual coolers on these cards too!
Any suggestions? Again, money is no object here. Its time for a GPU upgrade and I want to as best as possible. My 8800gtx has done me well for a long time and still does, but with Crysis 2 coming out, im going to need more GPU power!

Thanks for any help!

Demon

bumpity bump!

Demonseed,  Here is a link to the comparison chart of all the high end graphics cards.  You can see there is not a huge benchmark difference between the 570 and 580.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

IMO with that chipset I would go with an ATI card, I was running 2 8800's and went to a 5850 about a year ago and love it.  Not to get off topic but you show you have a Intel SSD drive, how do you like it?  I am going to be upgrading my 1st gen raptors with a SSD drive.  I have seen alot of good reviews on the Intell drives.

I have to agree with UFANS on the matching AMD with ATI cards...not to say that you can't mix and match, but in general terms, Nvidia for Intel and ATI for AMD (which now they're all under AMD)...

My specs are actually similiar...as was my choice of video card before my current setup since I too ran an 8800GTX 640Mb card...currently I run this:

AMD Phenom X2 555BE (unlocked to quad core; OC'd to 3.5Ghz with a Corsair H50 to keep it nice and cool...idle temps are 19-21c...)
MB: MSI 790FX-GD70 w/4 PCI-E slots ( with full 16x by 16x Crossfire or 8x by 8x by 8x by 8x if I went 4 cards)
Video: 2 ATI 5850's in Crossfire (16x by 16x)
10,000 RPM Raptor Main HD
a 1TB back up drive
8 gb G. Skillz DDR3 1600Mhz
750w PSU
CoolerMaster Haf932 Tower case

Btw, check this link as well for video card comparison...

GPU Review


Also be sure to check benchmarks for the cards you're looking into...I like using Unigine's Heaven 2.1 and the new 3DMark 11...they are graphics intense and were made moreso for Nvidia cards, but compare results for ATI cards if they're the ones you are looking to get...the real trick is to make sure to do proper maintenance on your system, keep everything clean and running smooth etc just as much as trying different settings to produce optimum gaming results...

Good luck with it...

The SSD drives are great! Very fast. PC boots up lickity split! Everything just snaps open, no laggin in windows.

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I will take it in to consideration when I make my purchase.

I'd like to make a suggestion with SSD drives.   Yes they are FAST.  But make sure to get adequate storage for the OS to reside on.  Typically 7 64bit will utilize AT LEAST 20gigs.  Just be aware.

i myself prefer amd CPU.. but nvidia GPU.... so i mix and match... but thats just me... for the money though... 460 is better i think... 5 series too high priced for my blood

Will I be able to run these nvidia cards in SLI or would I need an nvidia chipset mobo to do that? I have been running my 8800GTX's in sli and they "seem" to be working fine. Looks like I might be switching the mobo and cpu out as well! I really like nvidia gpus. Now that i've read about how much cooler the 5 series runs and having physx graphics as well. Would my 8800GTX serve as a good dedicated physx card while the 5x did all the other processing?

So here is what im looking at. I went to newegg and picked out a new mobo, cpu and gpu. All nvidia based.

MSI Big Bang-XPower LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor BX80601950

MSI N580GTX Twin Frozr II/OC GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video ...

Will all these run together without any bottlenecks?

bump

No you will be fine.

To answer your question about SLI..  

Just as long as the board supports SLI you will be fine.

HOWEVER if you were to have gone with ATI you would need the board to be CROSSFIRE ready in order to run 2 ATI cards.

thanks Cave!

I just got really lucky and won a contest on Facebook from CyberpowerPC! I won an MSI 470 GTX Twin Frozr II !!  Been reading up on this card and it sounds really nice! Just saved myself close to 300 bucks! Now I am curious if I should use my 8800gtx as a dedicated physx card or should I use the 240GT I have available? Once I get the money I will upgrade my mobo to an intel/nvidia chipset so I can go SLI with the 470's. Any suggestions on what I should do?

Thanks!