How to pick an ATI card?

I decided it's time for an upgrade. I read some reviews and I'm thinking that an ATI video card is the way to go, so off I go to Newegg.com to look for something that will fit my budget of around $300.

Upon looking at the X1800XT's, I noticed two things:

1. Sapphire brand is MUCH MUCH cheaper than other brands. How come?

and

2. Sapphire has 3 different models of the 256MB X1800XT.
Model #100154L, Model #100154, and Model #100154SR. I realize that one is OEM and the other two are Retail, but the price differences don't really make sense to me. Can someone help me out here? Thanks!

the price differences don't make sence to me either.the first two one is lite retail and the second is OEM.other than the box I don't see any difference between them,maybe warranty but I don't see anything about that.the third is standard retail and that looks to add some power DVD software.I don't know if that is worth 20 bucks(it isn't to me)

Thats really weird. However the obvious differences are as follows (at least according to the Newegg)

The first model you linked to is crossfire ready

The second model (oem) has no mention of crossfire support

The third has no mention of crossfire either, but does include a manual and comes with a lot of bundled software.

Thats all i can find different between them. The question is, are you willing to pay more for the extra software or not.

I have had a couple of sapphire cards including my current one and always had good luck with them. The only problems I’ve had are due to my own ignorance