you are right fish but i am only using viewsonic 1930 19"wide monitor, i think you can benefit the 32pipelines of 8600gt compared to 16pipeline of 8500gt "if" your monitor is 32" or some bigger monitor. there you can appreciate and enjoy higher resolution of the game. for me buying a bigger monitors to support HD is very costly, now if your budget is not tight i would rather settle with the 8800gts and buy some bigger monitor that can support high resolution. this 8500gt can only support up to 2560x1600 wow this is huge hehe my monitor cannot support this hehe.hope you get my point