Graphics card to accompany upgrade

[McPhee]

Looking to upgrade my computer in the next week or two. Current spec;

AMD BE-2300 (1.9GHz Dual Core)
Biostar TF560 A2+
ATi x1950 XTX
4GB PC2-6400

New spec;

AMD Phenom II 720
Asus M3A78-T

Same RAM, just need a graphics card. I'll be running it on a 19" monitor for the most part, though i'll probably look at hooking it up to my Plasma for 1920x1080 gaming (tried it once, didn't like it but i'll have another go). I'm most likely buying from Overclockers as they have pretty good prices on the CPU and Mobo and are just up the road.

I'm not sure i'm interested in Nvidia cards, i'll be hooking it up to the TV for media centre features and prefer the single-HDMI cable solution ATi have. That pretty much leaves me with the following choices;

4850, upgrading to Crossfire at some point down the line
4870 1GB - unless something dramatically changes in pricing Overclockers charge way too much for the 512 making the 1GB the clear choice between the two
4830 Crossfire

Price-wise i'm looking at £110-ish for a 4850, £170-ish for a 4870 1GB and £160-ish for two 4830's. Prices will likely have all changed by the time i get round to buying though...

[HermansArmpit]

It's a tough one because prices are going to be coming down because of the 4890. I'd leave it a few weeks if my patience let me or get the 4870 1gb. 1Gb would be better for scaling up to your plasma and it's pretty reasonably priced at the minute. But again, it'll probably cost less in a few weeks so possibility of getting one now then crossfiring them in a few months if that's your bag.

Also make sure your PSU is powerful enough for it. I've recently overlooked that and now have to upgrade to run my GTX260. Silly me.

[McPhee]

Should be OK on the PSU front, Corsair HX520 Not a huge PSU, but certainly enough for one card and most likely enough for two, as long as they're not GTX295s or something silly

I really should wait a bit, but then again if i do that i could be waiting forever. It's not long til the next batch of PHII chips, then probably an Intel price drop, followed by an AMD price drop. So that's another 6(?) weeks of waiting. At that rate there'll no doubt be something else "a few weeks away". Will give it some thought though.

[NoPrisoners]

Hi, I would not usually say wait, but in this case I would, with the 4890 and GTX275 coming out very soonish. It least the 4870 should drop in price even if you don't get one of the new ones.

[HermansArmpit]

Yeah McPhee I think the same thing most of the time but I'm not patient enough to wait. I usually just go for it hehe.