Gtx 260 sli vs single radeon 5870

There are no issues running an ATI card in your board. GTX260 SLI would be about equal to HD5870 in performance

I appreciate you feedback but does anyone have any personal experiences they could share??? I asked an evga support person (because its an evga mobo) and they said this:
You would want to contact ATI about the drivers on their side of things. I can tell you the Nvidia chipset will probably fight/conflict with the ATI drivers. If you can get them to play nice there should be no problem, but it might be a struggle to get them to cooperate.

Most people have been telling me there are no issues, but I've read a few posts saying it's buggy. Has anyone actually done this?? I just don't want to spend $400+ on a 5870 and have it be unstable or worse. And I really don't want to buy a new mobo, ram, and cpu to switch to a more compatible chipset for ati.

I would not suggest getting another GTX 260 right now. There is a confirmed bug with those cards in SLI and certain motherboards. Specifically, the P5n-t deluxe and the Striker extreme. That's 2 different chipsets...680i and 780i. I do not have confirmation that it is the entire chipset line for both, but I can confirm those specific motherboards.

The bottom line is the GPUs will not take load in SLI over about 50% each, and you will not get solid performance at all. Not until it is fixed. I know NVidia is actively working on the issue, but I have no timeline at this time as to when it will be fixed. If you can wait, when it is fixed, the 2 260s will be slightly less powerful than the one 5870, but not much. It's a close call. And as stated, there is no issue running a 5870 in a 780i chipset board. no conflicts should occur. But you would not be able to run 2 of them in crossfire on that chipset if you were thinking of purchasing another down the road.

EVGA customer support is trying to sell you in on Nvidia products, That is their business, they don't sell anything made by AMD.
I have had ATI cards on nvidia chip set boards and nvidia cards on AMD chip set boards and had no conflicts at all.

Ok I guess I'll pull the trigger on the ati. Any recommendation on a good vendor that WILL take the card back if there is a problem??

Also any brand suggestion for an ati card...My last 3 or 4 cards have been nvidia so I'm out of the loop.

Newegg.com If you want to play it safe XFX offers double lifetime warranty.

Thanks for all your info! I'm ordering today