Confused about video cards

[pabzOr]

I need help choosing a new video card. When I built my rig I made the mistake of cheaping out on the video card. I went with a single 6870 and found it to be not enough, so bought a second at which point I was still not completely satisfied. Now I recently switched cases and motherboards and despite my cards being 2 slot cards, they need 3 slots to be ran together. I thought they would work together on the Gene-Z board but they don't.

I would like to get 1 nice card that I could play BF3 on high settings. I game single monitor at 1920x1200.
Since kepler is around-the-corner-ish I decided to keep it simple with 1 card, instead of 2, so I can easily sell it when the new generation comes out. I am also thinking 6990 and 590 will be a bad idea for price/performance as well as re sell.

I looked into gtx 580 and 6950, 6970 but I am unsure as they are completely different in price, despite being the 2nd top model each. There are also different amounts of Ram which I am unsure which will be best for my setup.

Can anyone help me figure out which best suits my needs price/performance wise, and maybe even teach me a lil what I am looking for in a video card so I know the next time around.

 

[rolli59]

If you were not happy with a dual HD6870 setup then a single card solution of the selected cards is not going to make you happy! Keplers performance is speculation currently so you might not even be happy with one of those.

 

[aebome]

These articles on Tom's are a good place to start:

Best GPUs for the Money
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fastest-graphics-card-radeon-geforce,3067.html

HD 6970/6950
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950-cayman,2818.html

GTX 580
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-580-gf110-geforce-gtx-480,2781.html

Battlefield 3 GPU benchmarks
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063.html

 

[pabzOr]

As mentioned above the card will only be a temporary solution, so I am not set on running BF3 on maxed out or anything. If I can run it on high with a single card I would be very happy.

The main thing I am confused about is the difference between 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3gb models of these cards and which one will best suit my needs at a competetive price.

 

[aebome]

The higher the RAM amount, the better the card can deal with higher resolutions and texture qualities. If you are looked to max out at 1920x1080 then 2GB if probably the sweet spot. 1GB may not be enough as BF3 looks to be somewhat demanding, and 3GB, while it won't hurt, may not provide enough benefit to justify its cost at 1920x1080.

 

[aebome]

EDIT: double posted, sorry.

 

[pabzOr]

My native resolution is 1920x1200. Does this make all that much difference from 1080?

 

[rolli59]

At your res it amount of memory will not make much of a difference as seen here with HD6950 1GB and 2Gb http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6950-1gb-benchmark,3041-13.html future proofing is another thing.