Should I buy a 5850 or wait til march for Nvidias new GPU's

Well the cheaper of the Nvidia cards is supposedly going to be $200 more than the HD5850. I'd only wait if you really need something more powerful(which means your monitors resolution is 2560x1600 basically)

I would wait because even though the Nvidia GPU's are supposed to be much more expensive, I think we might see a drop in ATI prices around the launch time, or shortly after. You may end up with a 5850 still, but if you aren't desperate to have it now it might save you money/get you a better card.

I am thinking the biggest thing to drive down the current 58XX prices is the March(?) release of the 6 displayport Eyefinity models with 2GB RAM

and also new refresh models breaking the reference design around the same time like:

MSI 5870 Lightning
&
Asus 5870 2GB MATRIX edition

hehehee  

Think I "might" be able to wait a little while longer myself - though it is So tempting to bust some of that cash outa my bank account to splurge on the nearest 5870 now to upgrade my aging 8800GT!!!

Am struggling to save various games till I get one... real soon  

I'd wait since we're already this close to the "release date"(I'll start to believe it when I start to see reviews) worst case scenario the price will be the same and you'll have more choices, and since the 5xxx have been out for so long wouldn't surprise me to see a price cut just to make Nvidia's life difficult.

I don't think the Eyefinity version or 2gb models will cause the regular 1gb versions to lower in price, most likely they will be released and end up getting a huge price premium so there wont be any reason to lower the regular versions.

yeah, maybe not just those,

but the "and" might...

The MSI Lightning - stock 1000MHz, is according to one site, only going to cost 30 Euro more than the standard cards.

Can but hope  

Just get a regular one and push it up to 1ghz yourself.
Paying other people to OC your video card is just a waste of money imo.

for the 30 Euro more, I'd buy the MSI Lightning

have seen one make it to 1075MHz

and another 1,100MHz core and 5,508MHz memory.

Looks like Very nice potential to me.

There is one or two already out for the 5830, i cant wait. if it is indeed as promising as it seems, i will be getting one  

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/17803/1/

I will probably be getting mine on the 4th/5th im giving it about a week to get some more reviews.

Yes, but i like to do a lot of research before i do anything. I want to know exactly what i can expect from it, especially considering i will be OC'ing it.

does anyone know what the smallest in size (length) ati 5870 as i may be able to push and get one of those instead but i am pushed for space inside my case and also will 550w be enought for a 5870 ?

The HD5870 is usually 11 inches long. 550w should be more than enough if the PSU is a decent brand.

damm dont think i will have 27.5cm of room, my PSU is a Fata1ty 550w

The HD5850 is significantly shorter, 9.5". Better buy too if you OC it and that PSU should give you enough overhead to do so.

The new MSI 5870 Lightning I linked to is shorter but also taller...

sorry, not sure by how much.