Imo I had come to the conclusion that the 6870 o/c- 6950 , basically all AMD @ 40nm at highest clocks had comparable performance. Even the 5870 is only 12% behind. Especially for single card use at 1920x1080.
It gets murkier with 2560x and eyefinity resolutions and the combined power of dual gpu's. 40nm limitations is where we are at.
The gtx 580 with its huge memory interface is a notch above everything and its priced that way.
The gtx 560 looks to compete with anything from AMD at 1920x1080,
my opinion.
I'm blown away at that price move on the 1gb 6970. First time they made me do a double take

. At the resistance to lower the price on the smaller die 5870, I find this move head scratching.
But then again, I never put much stock in the whole die size meaning much concerning bottom line pricing.
Hoorah to price cuts.