I am stumped on a video card to buy.?

I have been browsing nVidia, ATI and some other websites for a good, long lasting video card. I know more about nVidia than ATI and i have heard and read that nVidia produces all around better cards. I have been looking at the nVidia Geforce 470gtx, I ruled out the 285 gtx. ATI cards i have been looking at are the ATI Radeon 5830 and 5770. Currently i have a nVidia Geforce gts 250. Which do you think would be the biggest upgrade? I went on websites to see if i could compare the stats of the video cards but i don't understand what more than half of them mean.



http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-5000/hd-5830/Pages/hd-5830-specifications.aspx



http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gtx_470_us.html



http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/DESKTOP/GRAPHICS/ATI-RADEON-HD-5000/HD-5770/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-5770-overview.aspx



Of friend of mine told me that the biggest deal is the bit rate.. my card is a 126 bit he recommended me to get a 256 or higher, is that a big factor in the performance of a video card? i have eliminated my choices to those 3 cards. I am leaning towards buying the gtx 470 but i am still not sure.

I currently play Age of Conan, Flight Simulator X, Call of Duty and Battlefield. I have some trouble running a few of them on high settings. Age of Conan especially, i cannot get over a 17 framerate with DX 10 enabled. If there are any other good video cards under $300 that you recommend i would appreciate it. Thank a ton|||Not exactly true to when it comes down to who's is better and longer lasting. A company by the name of XFX is well known to produce NVidia and also Ati cards. The AMD Ati Radeon cards are generally a bit cheaper than NVidia. The 5770 is an excellent card and would be compared to a GTX260, close too.



NVidia has the 400 series which will hit markets very soon, produce beyond belief performance. Ati is more of focused on energy saving and low GPU temps. It is more of your call on what you would like to get, the GTS 250 is a great card for today's games. It would be as close as a 4770.