jryan388 said:
I vorte 460. Cheaper than and performs even with the 6850. Also I believe it has more overclocking headroom.
Completely agree. Get the GTX 460 1GB. I don't know if you have that notion, but it is commonly said ATI/AMD has more driver problems than Nvidia. I always take these considerations with a grain of salt. However, I can tell you my latest experience with the HD6850 confirms this widespread notion.
Basic things such as the mouse pointer getting corrupted while web browsing (I personally experienced this problem, even with Catalyst 10.12, that says it had solved the problem. And others have found out the same), or playing famous games such as Starcraft 2 (I personally don't have this game, but lots of people complain it makes the game unplayable).
Other problems: some driver versions will get you into problems playing Flash videos on youtube, others will give you problems with SD dxva videos, etc.
I couldn't even get some games to align with the screen even after using the monitor's auto adjust button, a part of the image would still stay out of the screen.
And then the card crashed and completely froze the PC on certain games and the only solution was to underclock the memory. And then AMD released the HD6850 and 6870 with non-final drivers (I got a CD with Release Candidate 2 drivers), and both these and the final 10.10 made WinXP freeze (I have Win 7 64-bit, so it didn't affect me though), requiring a hotfix 10.10a. Then they released hotfix 10.10b, and then 10.10c, and then 10.10d, and then 10.10e. All non-WHQL, "As Is", of course.
And then they released 10.11 than did not support the HD 6850 or 6870. And then they released the 10.12 drivers one day before the HD 6950 and 6970 and those drivers did not support these cards. And then they released a hotifx 10.12a to deliver that support, and... you get the point.
Nvidia released the GTX 580 and then the GTX570 and they provide WHQL certified drivers. People with the HD6950/70 have to do with the beta drivers that came on the CD or the "AS IS" and unsupported by AMD 10.12a hotifx.
The GTX 460 has a higher load power consumption, but is actually very good when idling, to the point it idles much cooler. It does have a much higher overclock headroom in general.
You also have better tessellation with Nvidia cards and the fact that the card is six months old now gives you a bigger choice of drivers.
Between these two cards, I have no doubts: get the GTX 460 1GB. That's what I exchanged the HD6850 for a few days ago. I got the Asus ENGTX460 DirectCU 1GB. It has an excellent cooler with 3 copper heatpipes that make direct contact with the GPU (that's what the Direct CU name means) ,and also a nice cooler on the VRM's that even has a little plate on the underside of the card to help dissipate further heat upwards. It even comes with a metal bracket attached along the pcb to prevent the card from flexing. It's a very nice card.
Oh, beware of the Gigabyte WindForce model. 18% of people on NewEgg get a card that dies within a few weeks.
Cheers!