seeing how the 8800 is on my money right now.
should i even consider about the .1?
the .1...? do you mean the direct x 10 vs 10.1...? I wouldn't even sweat that, whatever you decide, just don't leave any doubt in your mind or you'll be second guessing yourself for the life of that card, pick the one that you think will work best for what you do, it may be totally different from what someone else may pick, but my advice is don't end up kicking yourself later on for passing on something that you wanted that was near your budget, but slightly over...
and most importantly, before you buy whichever card you end up with, reread all the reviews that you can, maybe a new review got posted from the last time you looked mentioning some incompatibilities with some of your other existing hardware...
if it were me, even though I'm a Nvidia guy, I would go slightly over budget and get the 4850, I'm thinking of either buying the Zotac today or tomorrow, or waiting until I find a better deal on the 4850, that card looks like a beast and could possibly improve with better, more mature drivers, but if I do, I'll have to upgrade my psu, so it'll probably be the 8800GTS...
I would listen to AR about this, he knows way more than I do about video cards, either way, good luck and enjoy your purchase...