Time for an upgrade

[Bozy]

Hi guys, I'm new here on the forums but not new to shopping at the awesome OC (bought my mobo, PSU and Processor from here last year). I come in seek of advice. I have £200 burning a hole in my back pocket and what better to spend it on than something that will make my games play 100% better than they already do

So here's the thing, I'm stumped on what card to buy... what card is best for the money and what will suit me better. I've seen a few tasty ones ranging from £150 right up to £200 but can't for the life of me decide on which to get, I'm upgrading from a (now) old 9800GTX (specs in sig).

Here are a few things that may help you to help me in coming to a decision..

1) Must be able to handle today's top games comfortably and be a hell of a lot better than what I currently use to justify parting with the cash.
2) Noise is not really an issue as I game with a headset mostly.
3) Would go for ATi or Nvidia. (on an Nforce chipset, but mobo is not SLi capable so either will do)
4) £200 is absolute top I can spend (no margin to go above that price) and I'd love to spend the whole lot of it on a beast
5) PSU can handle anything and has all the right connections needed.
6) Not going to be going SLi, so single card performance based decisions only.
7) I will be gaming on both my normal 19 monitor (@ 1440x900) but often (when the other half is not around) love to use my 40" HD LCD TV for gaming and watching movies (@ 1920x1080)
8) Something that will hopefully not need upgrading for a few years so will be able to play, and also look nice BFBC3, MW3 etc...

Hope you guys can help me out, here are a couple of cards I have seen that caught my eye but feel free to offer up your opinions too, I really don't want to regret picking something myself after I already bought it lol

MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 2048MB
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-128-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560Ti OC 1024MB
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-074-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1341

Here's to a long and prosperous journey on the OC forums and I hope to get stuck in while learning a few things along the way, oh and PC GAMING *** !!!!

 

[daveash]

Out of those two, I'd probably go with the 6950, although both are great cards. That 560 can often be OCd to 1000ghz core, at which speeds I think it's a little faster than a stock 570, which is great. However, that 6950 can also be unlocked to a 6970 (there's a thread on it somewhere).

Seriously though, they're both brilliant and will be able to blitz anything at 1440x900 while still being able to run almost anything at 1920x1080 with the detail ramped up.

 

[Bozy]

Thanks for the advice... I'm leaning more toward the 6950 but I'm probably gonna flip a coin when I get to the shop lol

Heads - Ati
Tails - Nvidia

 

[Cleeecooo]

Heads

 

[hbk123]

Heads=6950, Tails=6950

 

[OrWolf]

Definately heads.

 

[Bozy]

Are you guys implying I should maybe use a two 'headed' coin???

Gotta admit, never touched ATi cards before, always been faithful to Nvidia but since my 8800GTS burned out early last year and I replaced it with a 9800GTX (which was quite a good replacement at the time) and that has started to fail in newer games... I would hugely welcome a change.

 

[Cleeecooo]

Are you guys implying I should maybe use a two 'headed' coin???

Gotta admit, never touched ATi cards before, always been faithful to Nvidia but since my 8800GTS burned out early last year and I replaced it with a 9800GTX (which was quite a good replacement at the time) and that has started to fail in newer games... I would hugely welcome a change.

Two heads are better than one

 

[Bozy]

Went with the 6950 TwinFrozr III while it was on offer guys (without the use of any coins haha), thanks for the help.

Great card, far better than my old 9800GTX anyways, so all in all I'm happy, got DiRT3 with it too.... bonus

One more thing... what's the best (free) benchmark software? wanna check out how the baby fares up.

 

[arc@css]

Unigine Heaven is worth a download.