Windows 7: Looking To Purchase a New Graphics Card Want Some Input

Hello, Please trust me when I say I'm not new to hardware installation or Building PCs I simply find myself in a bit of an Interesting spot at the moment and its driving me up a wall. I do a lot of high-end gaming on my Custom built Desktop however I am in the process of upgrading it as the hardware is getting a little outdated for my preferences. And the first thing I am looking to upgrade is my graphics card looking to spend between $200-$500 USD. I have contemplated either buying a single higher end graphics card i.e. an nvidia 680 or a Radeon 7970. My other option is going with two lower end Cards and running SLI or cross fire. Any thoughts?

I've never honestly owned a SLI or CF setup but from what I hear, a single card is still more stable.

I have not had a problem running cross fire in the past, But then its been a while since I last had a rig that was running it.

A lone 7970 Will smoke everything in it's price budget.
You could also wait for the new 8000 series coming up in a couple of months.

I Have been putting it off for quite some time so a few more months of waiting wouldn't be bad, there is nothing wrong with the hardware I have now its just getting old. Perhaps waiting and saving up some more money would be the best way to go about things.

I have had both sli and xfire rigs. I'm currently running crossfire 7970s. Both green and red 2x work great, but have their unique issues. For your use - gaming - you may want to look at which games you play and how each driver set (green or red) work for your preferred games. 680 is a great card, as is the 7970. Why wait... When the 8000 come out, you can then wait for nvidia to reply... And so on, forever. You can get a 7970 or 680 for a great price today. For 7970s just unlock a reference card, add a little volts, and you have a GHz card for a lot less money.

The GTX 680 is a good single-GPU card, probably the best one in the market, and it is 10-15% faster than a reference HD 7970... A Crossfire/SLI configuration will be more instable, will consume more power and consider that a lot of games (like NFS Most Wanted 2012) are not multi-GPU compatible: this means the application will only use 1 GPU, leaving the second one at 0% load.

In my opinion, go for a strong single GPU card. I suggest you the GTX 680 because it is a bit faster than the HD 7970 and it supports Physx, better 3D vision than the HD 7970 and it has really better drivers.
If you can, search for a superclocked edition... It will give you a little more performance boost than the reference card.

AMD Radeon cards are the better value currently, but Nvidia cards on average are suppose to run a tad bit better. You can't go wrong with a high end card from either maker honestly. You could have identical systems, one with a GTX 680 and the other with a 7970 and run tests until you were sick of them and never find a clear "winner". Nvidia does seem to have better driver support, so that may be a factor. I've heard more people having issues with 2xAMD cards than 2xNvidia cards, mainly because of the driver. The GTX 670's are coming down in price and they are proven performers, but the 7870 GHz edition and the 7950's are cheaper or around the same price as the 670. I know nothing I've said so far help you decide, if anything it muddies the waters a little bit! Sorry about that lol.

Also, you are upgrading other parts as well? What exactly are your plans? That would probably affect which way you need to go in terms of graphics cards.

At the low end of your price range, a Radeon HD7870 looks like the clear choice. It doesn't compete with a 7970, but it's about half the price. I doubt that there's a competitive nVidia card that's just over $200US.