Which graphics card setup should I use?

Twinfrozr iii 6950 or 560ti Hawk, the hawk performs almost like a 570 and has insane oc headroom.

hmm ok

I was planning on unlocking the 6950's shaders and oc-ing to near 6970 levels also... any ideas how this compares to the overclocked 560Ti Hawk?

2Gb 6950 < £200 http://www.ebuyer.com/254950-powercolor-hd-6950-2gb-gdd... if you can wait the 7000 series will be released over the next few months

I had GTX560Ti and HD6950 and I would choose GTX560Ti. Why? Performance is coparable but on Radeon in some games there are FPS drops issues which does not happend to GTX560Ti. The worst thing is to buy 2x6850 cards becasause it doesn't work fine in all games. It is always better to buy one powerful GPU then 2 weak.

Just looked up comparisons on guru3d as they reviewed the two graphics cards i am interested in, and also would have used the same test bench for both reviews.

the MSI TwinFrozr III HD6950 beat both the MSI GTX 560 Ti Hawk and the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti SOC versions on CoD:MW2 and Bad Company 2, and also, most importantly, had a much improved 3DMark 11 P score over them...

So the only thing stopping me from getting the hd6950 is the lack of PhysX... What difference does this make?

here are the comparison links btw:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-r6950-twin-frozr-iii-...

http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-geforce-gtx-560-ti-ha...

http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-gtx-560-ti-soc-r...

For the few games that actually use PhysX, probably a bit, but there are so few, dont base a card decision on whether it has PhysX or not. Can always use an older nvidia card with the Radeon as well, as a PhysX card.

just buy an hd 6950 twinfozr iii it will be better in gaming then the gtx 560ti in your resolution it will work great and you can overclock it and also can unlock its shader units 

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-msi-hd-6950-twin-fro...

Had a quick look at a youtube comparison of PhysX toggled on and off in Batman: Arkham City, and although it looks cool, the fact that not that many games uses the technology (thanks vrumor!) swung me back to the more powerful HD6950!

  thanks for helping me make a difficult decision guys!

The numbers don't lie....in a single card configuration, its a close race with a teeny edge to the 560....however, in SLI, the 560 tops the 6950 by over 100 fps (14%) ....it's also a helluva lot cheaper

Guru3D uses the following games in their test suite, COD-MW, Bad Company 2, Dirt 2, Far Cry 2, Metro 2033, Dawn of Discovery, Crysis Warhead. Total fps (summing fps in each game @ 1920 x 1200) for the various options in parenthesis (single card / SL or CF) are tabulated below along with their cost in dollars per frame single card - CF or SLI:

$ 240.00 6950 Frozr OC (484/759) $ 0.50 - $ 0.63
$ 215.00 560 Ti - 900 Mhz (495/862) $ 0.43 - $ 0.50

The 560's with the 7 phase VRM (Twin Frozr doesn't have this) are extreme overclockers.....How many cards can you can't recall that can do 30% over reference.

http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1201&page=17

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-asus-gtx-560-ti-dire...

Either way, Id go w/ an 850 watt PSU if overclocking and so as to allow addition of 2nd card later on

Just so you guys know what I chose, I ended up getting a used Inno3d gtx580 1.5GB for £255 from ebay  

Thanks for all your help guys!

P.S. How do you choose best answers on this forum by the way?