Windows 7 - Help deciding one which graphics card to keep/buy

Title( Help Deciding on* which graphics card to keep/buy:Correction )Alright guys.. recently i got an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti graphics card for x-mas.. really satisfied with it as i can run battle field 3 in high details but.. the thing is it has some chop in the frame rate only sometimes /: if i lower it to medium it plays perfectly fine... i really wanna max out my computer that way when newer games come out i didn't just waste 200$ on this graphics card... but my friend has the NVIDA GeForce GTX 560 ti is that worth spending the extra 100$ on (Retail Price 300$) if so i'll take this one back and get the 300$ no problem at all.. this is my first experience gaming on the pc...one person said id be better off buying more ram for my computer , only problem with that is last time i bought ( The exact ram i need ) it gave me blue screens frequently which is why i have (two) 2 gig sticks in my pc right now, my computer specs are Processor ( Intel(R) Core(TM) Quad-Core i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80 GHz ) Memory(Ram) 4g ( graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 ti (Don't know if this is necessary but motherboard asrock :O ) Extra question: Is an asrock motherboard good...? always wanted to know

Go with an ATI Radeon 6870

The 560 ti is a significantly more powerful card than a 550 ti: the 560 has twice the number of processor cores. How helpful that would be in BF3, I don't know.

If you're in the US or Canada, and paid $200 for a 550 ti, you could have done better ($135) online:

Newegg.com - EVGA 01G-P3-1556-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) FPB 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

You can get a 560 ti for $240:

Newegg.com - EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1563-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

For a bit over $300, you can get the 448 core version (rather than the older 392 core one):

Newegg.com - EVGA 012-P3-2068-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 448 Cores Classified 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

WARNING: a 560 ti needs a larger PSU than a 550 ti. eVGA recommends 500W for the 560 and 400 W for the 550. The 560 also wants two 6 pin PCI-E auxiliary power connectors, while the 550 needs only one.

Are Asrock motherboards good? I expect so. Asrock was a budget maker a few years ago, but they're competing with the major makers now. I don't own one, but I'd consider one for a new build.

Just out of curiosity, I checked the hardware requirements for BF3:

https://help.ea.com/article/what-are...-battlefield-3

Yikes.

The recommended cards are nVidia GTX 570 or AMD Radeon 6950, on a quad-core system with 4GB of RAM and Win 7 X64.

And that's why I'm about to suggest the ATI XFX HD6950 my 2gb version maxes out BF3 @1080p with full AA

6870 is faster then the 560ti get the 6870 and its cheaper

GTX 560 Ti definitely. After long research i decided against HD 6870 and upgarded my old 5770 to factory overclocked 560 Ti by MSI. 6870 ain't got a chance.

6870 only plus is that it's little cheaper and draws less power.
Overclocked 560 Ti is as fast as 6950.

Agree!!

I have MSi 560ti 2gb version overclocked from 880Mhz to 940MHz and have no problems. BF3 is smooth on Ultra and any other game I play. Even tried this card at 1Ghz and it worked, though I lost my nerve and reduced it back. Also found bf3 can use a little of the extra memory available.

Hope this helps