if you want bang for your buck, get 2x 4870's.

if one of your cards ever dies, hopefully they won't but still, you still have another card to play off of until you can replace the dead one. with the dual GPU cards, if they die well then your dead in the water so to speak, you can't play (unless you have some spare high end or decent card lying around, and not many people do) until you can replace it. IMHO 2x single GPU will always be better then dual GPU for exactly that reason. Period. as for performance, 2x 4870's is just as good as a 4870x2, don't even consider the GTX 295, its overpriced atm and it is also new which means that its going to have some flaws. if you read some more reviews on the GTX 295 you will also find that it isn't any better than the 4870x2, its just new and over priced. definatly not an option if you want bang for your buck.

oh and make sure if you get the 2x 4870's you get 1G cards.

hope this helps some. ^_^

~YYF