Nividia or ATI, Intel or AMD

[ICDP]

335th_GRAthos posts a very good system. The only caveat his his lack of experience of current AMD cards. As a person who builds and supports PCs for a living I would say that overall the HD6970 is a slightly better choice as a GPU over a GTX570, though only because of the higher 2GB RAM. Most of the tests I have done show the HD6970 and GTX 570 trade blows and are both very close in performance at 1920x1080, the HD6970 starts to shine as you add higher res and more FSAA and AF etc. To be honest you will not go wrong with either card, or if money is a concern the GTX560 or HD6950, thought the HD6950 is definately a much superior card in this price range.

There is no problems with AMD drivers in my experience, so don't let anyone tell you they are crap.