Upgrade from 6850..Nvidia?

The = to the 560 is the HD 6950. But depending on your budget as to what card you should get. The 6970 is better than the 560 ti but not as good as the 570. If you want a card that is as fast as a 570 then get the GTX 560 Ti 448 core.

But you should wait to see what the prices are going to be after the Nvidia's Kepler hit the stores. I know at one time Nvidia had the trade in but I don't know if it is still in effect. You could also look at the 7950 to play your games on ultra.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] djmlisszml

1) check GPU charts for the games you want to play, you may find that it is something in the system holding the GPU back rather than the GPU being the problem, especially when running newer CPU based games.
2)the 6850 is slower than the GTX560 which is the bottom-line gamer card they make (granted the 560 also costs $100 more lol)
3)For the price of a 6970 you could get a GTX570 with similar performance +Physx on some of the games you play. I payed $280 after rebates for my 570 and really could not be happier with it. I am not a huge gamer (got the card for CUDA in Adobe Premiere), but the games I play really fly!
4) You may need a bigger power supply for any of the cards you are considering. Most GPUs want a 550-650W power supply. See the manufacturer's site for recommended power output.
5) No troubble at all to run nVidia on an AMD system. The trouble is just the fact that the AMD will be more likely to bottleneck games than a modern Intel setup, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the GPU.
6)I am not aware of any trade up policy for GPUs, but keep in mind that traditionally the High end cards come out first, followed by the mid-range cards 2-6 months later, and it seems that AMD and nVidia are out to raise prices, which means that 5xx cards will likely not lower in price as quickly as once hoped; In short, the prices are not going anywhere fast, and the 600 series will be more expensive instead of replacing the current price points, so you may as well stick with a current gen card. Most of these trade up things come out during a product refresh (basically a re-branding of the previous card with minimal improvements), but this is not that, it will be a completely new monster.

Best of luck!

If you're buying now, you'll want to go for a 6970 or GTX 570 if your budget permits, a 560Ti 448 would also be okay, it can be easily overclocked to GTX 570 performance levels. The regular 560Ti really isn't a huge jump over the 6850, only about 20% faster, so it isn't exactly the most worthwhile of upgrades.

AMD CPUs and nvidia cards work fine together, same with Intel CPUs and AMD cards, there are no compatibility issues related to GPU and CPU brand.

As said above, if you have the patience, you may want to wait for Kepler to hit stores and see if it precipitates some price drops on the current set of cards.

If you have time on your side then wait for a rebate to come out. My 570 was $350 before rebate, but then $280 after rebate (thank you Sparkle!). I don't think that the 570 is worth paying an extra $70, but it is most definitely worth an extra $20-30 (in my opinion anyways). Really the 560ti is a solid gamer card, and the 570 is an entry level professional card that can also play video games. The performance in games is not that much better (though measurable), but the performance in rendering simply cannot be compared.

I would avoid the 448 core as it is a stop-gap product, which means that it will disapear from the market, making future SLI either really annoying, or just really expensive. Stick with a standard 560ti or 570.

Thank you for the Benchmark link!

Honestly it kinda looked as if the 560 448 core is a better buy for my gaming needs?

@caedenv I was wondering about the availability of the 560 448core for future Sli config.. Seems i was correct thinking they may become scarce?

As a side-note I do fully intend and plan on Overclocking the card to its limit..

If i overclock the 560 448 core.. People say you can reach 580 specs?

With Nvidia cards is there such thing as BIOS flashing like on radeon cards?

I just want to chime in here. Its not just shader cores, its Texture Units and ROP's as well. More ROP's means more pixels can be pushed out each clock which means higher resolutions.

...and between manufacturers (AMD/Nvidia) comparing the numbers is just useless, except maybe the memory bus.

The 6950/6970 BIOS flash is a one-off trick. It doesn't exist anywhere else.

I think the 570 and 6970 will continue to trade blows with both overclocked. One isn't seriously better under any circumstances.

The OCed 560 Ti 448 should almost hit the performance of a non-OCed 580.
Do you think you can get another fairly soon? It may be true that availability won't last too long. If you don't plan to get another for a while, you may have to go 570.
If you feel like you can afford two right now, then you should just get a 7970 and maintain an upgrade path

the 448 core can hit 570 level with an OC but the 570 OCs pass it. Its not worth getting the 448 core since its almost as expensive as the 570 but lacks the performance when not OC'ed. Theres a reason its not in the best video card for your money.

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,3107.html

The 6970 vs the 570 is all depending on the game but since the games you play include batman, you might as well get the 570 for the physx.

If you have 2 pci express you may want to crossfire the 6850 which gives above 580 performance in games where crossfire works, also draws less power even though its 2 cards. Would be the much cheaper option.

Even though the 448 is a good OC'ing card And I pointed it out to you. But it is a doomed card for the fucture as one person has posted. So take that off the table and you have the 570 or 6970.

Since I feel the Nvidia is a better card on the high end, that would be my choice. It will fetch a higher resale value in a year or two than the 448 core one would. By then you would be able to save for a new 3rd Gen. MOBO.

Also be able to save up for the Nvidia Kepler 6xx series cards. The 570 now would meet all of your OC'ing needs and your gaming. Since that is in your budget. Again this is just my opinion on this subject.

Tom's doesn't list it as the best card for the money because it's not a great value at stock clocks. "Although the 448-core GeForce GTX 560 Ti can't overtake AMD's Radeon HD 6970 at its stock frequencies, Nvidia's limited edition stunner is highly overclockable. Enthusiasts should be able to push it significantly further than Nvidia's shipping settings. When you consider that AMD's card costs $30 more, there's room for significant value here if you're willing to pursue it."
...as in it would be, but they don't consider OCing in their best-for-the-money choices.

The 570 is still the way to go here, though.