Yeah theyre usually xt-pe's that wouldn;t run at default speeds, id still say xt or gt, pro isn't really worth the money.

I suggested pro simply because he said the 400+ for the 6800 Gt was more than he wanted to spend. Not to mention it will do fine with all the games he has, and will likly come out in the future.

I always assume that in some instances you can safly skip an generation of vieo cards as long as you have the top of the line (or damn near) from the last gen. People who bought 9800xt/pros, are still running fairly well with current games. Unless a game company puts out a murderous game, worse than far cry graphics demand wise, they would probably be safe to skip this series. Or atleast wait for some price drops when the next set of this generations cards hit. Like the x850 and so forth.

I ended up holding off on the Vid card and beefed up some other aspects of my rig

I picked up
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDe ... 908&depa=0

and

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDe ... 035&depa=0