sonicfoot, I play counter strike source with settings:
Model Detail: Medium
Texture Detail: Medium
Water Detail: No Reflections
Shadow Detail: Low
Vsync: Disabled
AF: Trilinear
FSAA: None
Directx: 9.0c
Resolution: 1280x1040 (my monitor's Native resolution)
I use these settings to keep a constant frame rate of 60 fps wherever I am on the map or how hot the situation gets.
When I bump up any of these settings, espescially the shader, I'll get 60 fps if I'm just standing around, or if the action isn't heavy at all but certain parts of the map with a lot of stuff, it slows down to 30 fps and when fps starts jumping around it really ruins your gaming experience. No fun at all, and I die more.
My computer specs are more than enough to run the game properly so I know it's my video card that's causing the slow downs....seriously I've set all the counter strike source settings on the highest to see what it would look like and it's absolutely beautiful. But with my settings it looks like an emulated playstation game on my PC.
So, anyways, I'd wait. Save up and by the time you have enough I'm sure some other card will come out making the Nvidia 6800 much more cheaper than it is.
Oh yeah, and i forgot to mention, I'm really disappointed with ATI. They were better than Nvidia when Nvidia was making those awful FX cards but now Nvidia is better. For sure. I can go into detail but I feel like it will get off topic. If you're interested PM me.
Anyways, good luck.