I think you should wait a bit too. Radeon card should get cheaper witht he next gen, and atm, green team cards are overheating (my 480 goes up to 72 degrees). If the 4850 has lasted this long, let it go a bit longer i reckon

Oh lord... GTX560 cards are filtering into Europe now and they smash the 6870 in benchmarks. Out of my price range in the €250 bracket though. 6850's may be available for around €160 now but I can't ignore the GTX560 benchmarks. Maybe I will win 80 quid on the lottery...

Ive never understood GPU releases, the GTX 560 is filtering in but the 570 and 580 are already available.

One very important thing to remember. Nvidia has the best technology and supports nearly every new game thats released with out graphical issues.

For legacy games EG Gog catalog stuff and games from a few years back you'll want an ATI card they run core software that renders the older tech without as many issues as Nvidia. EG, Alien vs Predator wont even run on a Nvidia system, only ATI will render it with special parameters

So your real question is, do you go Nvidia where stability, compatibility, and temperature control are #1 or go with ATI where legacy compatibility is your goal. ATI also handles multi monitors better then Nvidia, much better. There more energy efficient too.

See it as a spearhead. the tip of the spear hits the target before the rest of the iron.

By putting top of the range card on the market first, the companies make relatively higher margins while their production line isn't yet at full capacity ( the initial lots of dies have higher error levels ). low end range comes next. They won't compete with the top range but make for a lot of sales. Mid range are the largest chunk and come third. by then the assembly line is mature and the enthusiasts have already bought their expensive hardware...

Now thats an explanation

So a card that costs almost 2X another card can smash said card in benchmark tests?

You dont say........

How does that GTX560 hold up against a 5870 or a 6970?

Yeah.......... thought so.

Derp. 6870's are currently around the same price as the GTX560 so yes the the GTX560 outperforming it by a wide margin is a big deal. Up till now the GTX460 has actually scored less than the 5850 and 6850.

That GTX560 Ti is a neat little boy! But why are the clock rates higher than the GTX580?

Fewer stream processors I assume. The GTX560 has to work harder to keep up with the 580. Also means a custom cooler on the 580 will yield higher clock speeds and even better performance.

That must be it. 256bit memory bitrate oposed to 384bit and 1 billion less transistors.

You are right, that is a suprising price. (My mistake, derp indeed. It seems like its around $50 more, depending on where you buy.)

But I would like to see these benchs, do you have a link?

My confusion stems from this:
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=635&card2=641

and this:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376154,00.asp

Tomshardware Review.

Thats.......... very suprising.

The power usuage is pretty damn high, but I have to admit, that is a nice one for the green team.