Neither article seems to back up your *quite dubious* assertions regarding manufacturing problems with nVidia's new GPU.  Given their best in class track record, I'd like to see some sources on this please?

here u go

gt300 yields

So I see unsubstantiated rumors, regarding the FIRST manufacturing yield tests no less, and Trigeminal's comment makes it clear it is a FOUNDRY issue, not an ATI vs. nVidia issue.

Finally something about the next generation!  Was getting impatient!

40nm....Guess that's good enough....With cpus down to 45nm and soon 32nm I had hoped for 32nm dies but then again double performance in a 5870 from a 4870 is helluva good!!     That means I can finally get a 24" 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 monitor and actually be able to USE the full resolution 

I like their different approaches to design. ATi goes for multicore gpus while Nvidia goes for double actual graphics cards (SLI). Im hoping ATi wins since AMD needs money (The allimportant balance).

I think the choice is obvious, if you believe that the cards are in fact 13 months away and won't be coming out until next summer/fall, just add another 4870. The 4870s are so cheap now for anybody with even just a little disposable income (I just picked up a Saphire 1GB 4870 from New Egg for 150), it's a no brainer.  Take advantage of the aggressive pricing now, and take advantage of it again in two years when the new cards are out and Nvidia and ATI are duking it out with price cuts again.

I'm not terribly familar with Crossfire/SLI performance - I know that initially the boost was minimal(but the same could be said for dual core initially), however a quick Googling shows performance is now about double in a crossfire configuration - so you should get at least next gen performace today and probably for less than you would pay for the new chips anyway.  And to be honest, I am a bit dubious of the claim of double the performance - would be great, but sounds like the marketing department getting ahead of the engineering department to me.  Would be great if it were true though.

If you think the cards are going to come out sooner, say this Jan/Feb than you might want to wait a while and see tenative pricing on the cards, but in all probability getting a second 4870 will still be the most cost effective upgrade path. 

Just my two cents. 

You're night, now that I've actually RTFA , it's reffering to the 13 month time frame from release of the 4800 series to the 5800 series.  I misunderstood the OP and thought they were saying the new cards are another 13 months out, which I thought was odd - but seeing as I didn't read the article, I wasn't going to say anything!

I still think the cost/benefit analysis remains the same.  Unless you lack the PSU to power two cards, I bet the 5870 will be coming in at the usual 349.99 (at least, I think that's the usual - it's been a while since I've followed these things), which is currently more than two 1GB 4870s go for, let alone the rather meager cost of expansion by adding the second.  But I digress.

I'd still get a 380 for $50 more over a gtx295 either way. DX11 capability, probably use less energy, and ill always side with a single gpu card over a dual gpu card (gtx295, 4870x2) b/c their easier to cool, better overclockers, fewer potential problems than sli / crossfireX.

Im still debating on whether to go ATI or nvidia when the cards are released. I like the way ATI goes about things, other than their driver support, but if i decide to go nvidia, only brand id get is EVGA with their step-up program. Buy a EVGA card and within 6 months of purchase and you want to upgrade, send it in for the newer card and pay only the difference. Only problem though is that im still using a socket 775 based system with a intel chipsets. If i wanted to go SLI, id need to get a new mobo and if that arises, might as well make a platform jump to socket 1366 and x58 chipsets with tri-channel ddr3 awesomeness. Cuz of that, im banking on ATI's 5870's price/performance ratio is similar to how it was when the 4800 series was released.

The way i see it, Directx11 is more of a sales gimmick than anything, dx10 still hasn't shown any significant improvement over dx9 (except robbing performance) The 380 does look awesome, wonder if it will have triple sli support, that would be one monster gaming rig....