[The 8800GT] is a great card to work with but it is DEFINITELY showing weakness and the age already. I would steer clear out of them unless you plan on playing games in lower res or not too many new games.
I would say go at least with 9800GT if you choose the nVidia lineup.
*Hits head against hard brick wall... again*
Someone didn't read my previous post. The 9800GT is the EXACT SAME CARD as the 8800GT, just with a die shrink to 55nm, added Tri-SLI compatibility, and a new cooler - Same old performance, though, with a new name to make people think they are getting an upgrade.
So all in all, I do not recommend 8800GT anymore. It used to be a pretty powerful, well priced card and it still is, but it does not have what it takes to take on the future things.
And what exactly is wrong with it? To be honest, I hate it when people just upgrade to upgrade. A 8800GT/9800GT would give him a huge performance increase from his 7600GT for only ~$100 USD. My card (8800GTX - bought ~6 months before the 8800GT was released) has about the same performance, and on that single card I'm still maxing out every new game that's come out with a lot of AA/AF tacked on as well. Crysis has been the only game that makes it work, and even that I can play on all "Very High" settings, 4xAA @720p, ~24FPS (smooth enough for SP).
Maybe I'll consent that it's showing it's age if you can show me a game other than Crysis that brings the card down, but until that happens, the 8800GT/9800GT remains my price/performance recommendation - Anything beyond that counts as splurging in my book.
I don't mean to sound angry here, and I don't have anything against the occasional hardware splurge (heck, I bought a 8800GTX...), I just didn't want the OP to read your post and come out thinking a 8800GT wouldn't be a good upgrade for him, as it definitely is.
EDIT:
Rereading what we both wrote, I want to make it clear that I understand it's not the most future proof card anymore, and it IS starting to show it's
calender age (been out about a year now - almost 2 years for my GTX). As for it's
cycle age, though, it's still very much alive and kicking.
To be honest, this chip shouldn't have lasted this long, still dominating like it has. I think it just goes to show how much consoles have limited the PC gaming scene... Only Crytek has been willing to make a true next-gen game built on what PC hardware should be able to handle easily by now. As the money is in console games, no other developer has been willing to push graphics beyond the reach of what a console port can handle - it's too much work for such little profit return. Since there are no new games coming out that demand higher performance, both NVidia and AMD are perfectly content selling gamers year old technology as new, without spending on R&D to improve the actual tech. I'm afraid that until a new generation of consoles comes around, the high-end PC market is going to be a little slow in growing.
Still, though, more to my original point and thought process: You are NOT going to get a future proof machine for $600 CAD. You can, however, get a pretty kick-*** system that can handle every game currently out on the market - hence my 8800GT recommendation.
That should be fine, barring any crazy exchange rate crap.
Damn exchange rates.
