Lions and Tigers and Video Cards, OH MY!

[Saurdaukar]

Running a single 8800GT.  Runs AH just fine.  Looking to upgrade for other games.

MoBo is SLI-ready.

Ditch 8800GT and buy a newer, better, single card or grab another 8800GT and "SLI" them?

Single card recommendations?  Researching now... confusing myself.  Would like to stick with nVidia.

[BaldEagl]

I wouldn't try SLI (I did and couldn't enable vsync).  A 9xxx series probably won't be that big an upgrade for you so you'll probably want to step up to a 2xx series card. 

If you're running a 32 bit OS stick with the cards with less memory so you're not stealing system memory.  Beyond that get the fastest memory clock speed you can find for the number of pixel pipelines (GPU core) that you're looking at.

[Fulmar]

I wouldn't SLI, unless you want to throw some money away.  You're not going to get 2x the performance from having 2 cards.  For the sub $500 options, single cards almost always are the best option.

I generally tend to use tomshardware monthly article on Best Video Cards for the buck.  July's edition is available and August's should be available in the next 7-10 days, I doubt there will be much difference.

Broken down by AGP (not much anymore) and PCI-E and in multiple price points...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2362.html