Is now a good time to upgrade?

[TreeUK]

Is now a good time to upgrade? spec please

I tend to upgrade every couple of years to keep games playable, I've been happily running an nvidia 8800 GTS 320mb but it's just died a death.
I've currently got an IP35 Pro mobo.

Conceding to your greater knowledge, is now a good time to upgrade? or is there a new chipset / pipeline about to break that will drop all the current cards in price?

If now is as good a time as any, what are currently the best performing cards (nvidia or ati) for up to and around £250?
(If the mobo is too out of date for new tech, advice here would be appreciated)

If now's not a great time, can anyone recommend any budget cards that'll do a reasonable job until the next big thing?

Really appreciate your time,

Tree

 

[TreeUK]

Thanks for the advice, there are a whole bunch of 5850s £250 - £316, all with max ratings.
Money's not running freely but is it worth making the leap to the 2 gig cards at the top?

If not, are the XFX, Asus, Sapphire ones all more or less the same or is there a clear winner?

 

[TreeUK]

I'm currently running two monitors, but game at 1440 x 900. Planning to upgrade that in the not too distant future though, maybe that lends more to the 5850 for slightly more future proofing.

Is the extra £50 worth the extra 1 gig onboard ram to go from say this one to this one?

 

[TreeUK]

For the future proof gain, I went for the Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card.

Really appreciate everyone's advice. Thanks!