Agreed, $250 BFG 6800OC @ Outpost. The fan supposedly isn't the quietest, but if it's performace for the price you're after, this seems to be the mid-range sweet spot.
Well, except for those Black Friday 6800s, but after tax you're saving $30 for the privilege of waiting outdoors and in line for hours. 🙂 I believe BFG's warranty is better, too.
Edit: No one's twisting your arm to void the card's warranty in any way, but isn't the pipe/vertex shader unlocking a Windows tool that doesn't require a BIOS flash? I thought it just ran in the background when Windows was running, a soft mod of sorts.