First off, i was playing a game last night and my screen went all corrupt. I figured it just overheated so i shut her down and moved on, later when i went back it ran fine no glitching until i got to a massive area in the game with a crap load of shaders. it then froze and kicked the bucket, no game will load or it does and then goes all wonky, color blocks everywhere.
Sadly my 8800GT workhorse has died. And i need a new card, these are the 4 cards I'm looking at: HD5770, GTX260, 9800GT, HD4870 -- my last 2 Nvidia based cards both had either bad shader cores or bad memory so im a little on fence about getting another. Thankfully windows runs fine, just not games...
The HD5770 is what is looking good to me, Runs Cooler with better power usage of them all. But its lacking in performance where others exceed. Keep in mind My target resolution is 1680x1050. I will not be going higher than that.

Heh and where is the problem in it? Do you think they are not ready when they are released every month?

Well over the years I've used I think 4 ATI cards and each one of them has been a piece of shit in one way or another. I do have a freakish tendency to get the worst of a batch but I've onyl had one piece of shit nvidia card and that was my own fault for buying an MX cheapo series

opinions are nice and trust me ive been a solid Nvidia fan since VooDoo stopped making cards. I used to run VooDoo everything, then moved to Nvidia... Personally i like them a lot, but 3 bad cards in a row are making me worry.
If a card cant even last 2 years with occasional use what good is it? And is there solid proof of Intel CPU conflicting with ATI drivers under the new 9.12 cats?
Lastly I cant wait a year for second gen dx11's to drop to sub $200 unfortuantly i wont have the ability to upgrade again until about late 2011-12 (unless the world does end then its all moot)
But my cpu is a duo at 2.8 i have 2gigs of ram (upgrading to 4) upgrading to win7 64bit also within the year and i have SATAHDD's and sound blaster what ever.. (lol @ sound cards so useless) the most i see as a MASSIVE upgrade is the cpu to an I7 and cocmpatable board... but at that time i might aswell just go buy a new PC and get some free goodies and a new monitor (Thats the 2011-12 upgrade)
the HD 5770 runs cooler and consumes less power then every card i mentioned that is why its on the list... running cool and more efficient makes me happy... the GTX260 is a powerhouse that could fry an egg, that worries me if i game for a 3 hour session and generate internals around 120 just from the damn heatsink on my GPU.

I'd just wait a few months for mid range DX11 cards. It's going to be the longest months of your life but it'll be worth it. That's my $0.02.

What make of card where they?

Whatever you don't go ATI, their drivers are ****. Get a 260 IMHO.

ATI cards are more efficient. But the drivers really are so bad that it's not worth it. You might be best off getting a dirt cheap card to tide you over then invest in a 300 series card when they're inevitably released.

In the range you specified, I'd get a GTX 260 (make sure to check the processor count on it) or HD4890 (just don't get PowerColor). I wouldn't bother with any of the others on the list.
On some systems, if you want to use ATi, then you may want to forgo installing the Catalyst Control Center.
If you want DX11 support, then you will need to bump up your pay to get a HD5850 because the 5700 series is not going to get it done. A cheap 5700 card will be serviceable on DX11 games, but don't expect anything great.
For performance and price, my preferred cheapass setup:
You may want to look at a 4850. The 4850 can be had for less than a $100 and runs most games well. In cross fire mode, these cards can be devastatingly efficient.

ati drivers are bad? OH COME ON!! that was like four years ago.
Don't recommend waiting for 300 as it will be plagued by lots of problems seeing as nvidia cannot make it work. so another 9 months or even more till a proper 300 card is released.
get 5800 card if you can. best deal for a buck

More like 4 months ago. Or four days ago given that my brother adopted the card and experienced even worse problems with the latest drivers. We eventually found drivers from a year ago that were stable enough though.

problem with single card =/= whole company. don't base your suggestions on a single event from your life. that's not very helpful.
4000 and 5000 cards are extremely stable and powerful. They received lots of praise and very good reviews both from the public and from professionals. a better bargain for a buck than 200 series.

By all means keep making baseless assumptions. But I am not the only one here saying ATI's drivers suck. It's not just here either. It's a common complaint and a one that has quite a long history.

I went to a friends house that happen to run a GTX260 and had that 4870 in his sisters rig.. i played around with then both and just kinda checked out the driver packages and such...
I so wanted the Nvidia just because that's all Ive known for years.... But as i read more about drivers and older software and there ability to still render ancient titles EG: Lithtech engine, Dark Engine, and what ever Aliens versus Predator used... i gotta go with ATI, if.... IF, ATI doesnt screw me and this card turns out to be the stable cold running love machine i hope it is... I'll convert to ATI...
Runs cooler, uses less power, and can run legacy games, i cant pass that up!
thanks to everyone that posted... i didn't intend on producing flames, and Im grateful for all the advice on both sides...

the problem with ati drivers was with 900 cards if i remember correctly. 3000-5000 cards do not have that problem. or to be more precise the drivers are not more problematic than nvidias.
Yes. years ago ati drivers were shit. now they don't. but people just keep making that assumption all the time without checking all the facts.
and come on mate :). you suggested waiting for 300. how can i treat your suggestions seriously then :) :)?