what he is saying is that in the pc gaming community people are VERY loyal to the manufacturers they like, Iv always been an Intel/Ati guy just as others are still trying to make their Phenom run as fast as my intel8) Your best bet is too look at different reviews and benchmarks online, there are some amazing sites like Tomshardware, hardwarecannuks ect, they will line up video cards, or even processors and benchmark them side by side.

With regard to your card the company that is using the Nvidea chip is not as important, Xfx, BFG, Phy, Sapphire they are all very similar, some offer more ram, others overclock the cards ect, if you compare the Nvidia 260 GTX, and the Ati 4870 the 4870 wins.. not by much.. but I think its the better card.

for $1500 hmmmm nice price point, here is what I would build

Case: Antec 1200

CPU: Intel Q9550 Quad Core 2.83GHZ Yorkfield 1333FSB 12MB (benchmarks faster then Core 2 Extreme Qx6700 Quad which retails for $1144.00 alone) The q6600 is geat I have it, I like it, but the 9550 is just sooo much faster I just ordered one for $345. well worth the extra $150 imo, rethink the 6600.

Motherboard: Asus P5Q Pro

Ram: 4 GB Corsair XMS2 Dominator DDR2 1066mhz

Hard Drive: WD Velociraptor 300GB, 10,000rpm OR WD 500GB SATA2 7200rpm

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon 4870 512mb DDR5 (it is the best hands down)

Optical drive: Pioneer DVR 215 20x DVDRW

Power Supply: OCZ GameXstream 750w

Aprox total (in Canadian $$) $1602, with 7200rpm Hard drive $1451

Either way a monster system I must say :) its a good time to build

Well that is about $370 canadian right? you can build a system for that, a few things to consider. I hope you already have a monitor. also any complete sytem for that much money wont even have a video card, the video card I just bought cost $600. so what do you want to use the system for?? do you want to game with it and what games do you play, if your playing cs 1.6 you dont really need much of a video card. Let us know what you what you want ie, intel based, amd, video card or not ect. The best performace/money would be a system a little over $490 Canadian which is about 255 pounds.