Looking for a graphics card

[Stormrider^]

Alrighty, so.
I'm going to upgrade my rig in time for Battlefield 3, my current card is a Ati HD 4870 which chokes a bit even on M?tro once you get out of those tunnels which is not nice.

I'm looking at a 6870 right now (smallish budget) and it looks good but I haven't seen the Nvidia side of things for years so if you have a more solid suggestion I am all ears.

Rig:
Ati Radeon HD 4870 1GB
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE @ 3,0 GHz
4 GB DDR2 @ 800MHz
Corsair 620HX 620 watt PSU
Asus M4A78-E mobo

 

[Handbanana]

currently have a gtx 560ti. around the same price point.
runs the bf3 beta extremely smooth.

but if you prefer ati, then the 6870 is a good choice.

 

[reflex99]

or a 6950...... costs the same as a 560Ti, but it is prettier.....

 

[Sn1PeR]

Here is a decent review of the betas performance on different cards:

http://hardocp.com/article/2011/10/03/battlefield_3_open_beta_performance_image_quality

Note the quality settings for each test. This is probably not representative of the final product, but it's the best we've got.