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I too find myself in a very similar situation to this....I ruled out the 560 and am torn between the 480 and the 6950. Does anyone know what the success rate for flashing the 6950 to the 6970 is?
The flashing process takes about 90 seconds with wizzards flash files, about 3 minutes if you want to manually do it.Gigabyte 480 Special edition would be my choice, bargain at its current price of £202.49.
Will run cool and quiet due to the 3rd party cooler, as quick as a 6970 and no farting around with BIOS flashing.
Techpowerups Test Results updated until Feb 1
Link
Full 6970 flash(not unlocked shader flash!)
471 Cards tested.
456 unlock fully to 6970.
14 unlock to 6970 but rendering errors.
1 did not unlock.
You can add my 2 6950's to the success rate too.