Why NOT 2-3800's vs 1-4800?

[Jahmer]

I am starting to research configurations for my video editing workstation (premiere pro and after effects).

Why WOULDN'T I want to buy 2 sli'd 3800 for total cost of $1600 rather than 1 4800 for cost of $1,550?

SPECS
3800 4800
1.0g 1.5 GPU memory
256 384 Memory interface
51 76 Memory Bandwidth
192 192 cores
2 2 dvi

FYI I currently have 6 monitors on my system running quadro cx ($1,800 2 monitors discontinued) and a quadro nvs 440 ($450 4 monitors). By the way, there is a card conflict with these cards even though they are both quadros and use the same drivers. I can't play a video in MS media player.) The quadro cx is basically a 4800 with some extra gpu enabled software.

[Zap]

The 4800 will have 50% more memory bandwidth. Also, it has a dual slot cooler that should be more effective and likely quieter. If your video editing software takes advantage of CUDA, then of course more CUDA cores will mean more performance. I'm not sure of the effects of memory bandwidth on CUDA apps. Oh yeah, the 4800 also uses 150W while the 3800 uses 108W, so that tells me the clock speeds are likely to be much higher on the 4800, which is likely why it needs the dual slot cooler. Besides how many slots it takes up, the 4800 is also 1.5" longer, sticking out beyond the motherboard. If that doesn't fit in your chassis, then your choice is made.

BTW, neither of these cards have dual DVI. They have one DVI plus two DisplayPort. I'm not sure how well passive adapters perform (if available) but active adapters are pretty expensive, probably close to $100 each. Just look up threads on Eyefinity if you want to hear about using these adapters.