Please settle this question about my GPU purchase

[freshbuilder]

Okay, I'm not sure if Crysis 2, Skyrim or Battlefield 3 is the most GPU intensive game out there on the market today, but I want a card that will play the game at max settings no compromise whatsoever, at 1080p with an fps of 60. my budget ranges between the HD 6950 to the 6970 and the Nvidia equivalent cards.

Performance aside I'd also like recommendations based on reliability, as I've heard that some 560 ti models actually shutdown due to overheating on Battlefield 3. I believe the issue can be solved, but still thats minus points for me. Finally I'd like the card to be quiet.

Finally, since I'm new to this buying my own desktop parts, what after market brands are good? So far I've seen a lot of people liking sapphire while MSI is polarizing in that people usually love it or hate it.

 

[swifty_morgan]

get a 6950 2gig card with the best cooling apparatus you can get.

 

[refillable]

This one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161382

Because I like blue cards

 

[jaguarskx]

Okay, I'm not sure if Crysis 2, Skyrim or Battlefield 3 is the most GPU intensive game out there on the market today, but I want a card that will play the game at max settings no compromise whatsoever, at 1080p with an fps of 60. my budget ranges between the HD 6950 to the 6970 and the Nvidia equivalent cards.

Not going to happen, see following review w/ benchmarks. Note that Crysis 2 benchmarks are using DX9 so I assume DX11 and the ultra high resolution pack will mean a 10% - 15% reduction in performance. You will find that the Metro 2033 benchmarks are very humbling.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_6970_Devil_13/6.html

Here's Battlefield 3:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/battlefield-3_4.html#sect1

 

[jaguarskx]

Here's results for Crysis 2 with the DX11 and hi res patch. It's much worse than my estimated 15% drop in performance.

Also you can checkout the performance of the Radeon HD 7970.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970/14.html

 

[spentshells]

6970's at 300 are starting to look like a pretty good deal

 

[freshbuilder]

Best answer selected by Freshbuilder.