The CPU will not limit that card, the product manager of the 58xx series cards had a 5870 with a 3.0Ghz Phenom II. If anyone would know it would be him. Besides you can always overclock another 4-500Mhz if you desired.

The motherboard is the same speed, you just lose a few features from the 870 series like USB 3.0 which you probably won't ever use.

Will the card drop in price? Probably but its impossible to say. Early 58xx series buyers actually paid less than people later on. Since you can't anticipate it you really can't factor it into your decision.

Overall Starcraft 2 performance: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd6970-hd6950_10.html#sect3

Bear in mind that current performance will be better due to better drivers and the availability of a new AA mode (MLAA)

as portable toe mentioned above do iahev to switch the motherboard back?

If you want a better motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.581455

Is a good combo.

None of the motherboards can do crossfire at this price level even if they have two slots, I just noticed. It'll run it at 1333 speed on the memory which is more than fine.

Nope. Thats just the highest the RAM is clocked at, so you could run the memory at a lower speed if the motherboard can't handle it. However the chances are pretty good that the motherboard will be able to run the memory at the rated speed.

thanks for all your help. I appreciate it. I will be ordeirng all of this soon. IS it possible that amd will fix that exploit on the 6950 by the time i order it or will they just keep them the same?

The sooner you order the more likely you'll get one from the original batch. However I wouldn't count on it 100%, its a nice thing if you can do it but not really a problem if not.

@Memory: Well you can pretty much try to set the memory to whatever timing/speed settings your motherboard supports. You can always underclock it, for instance if you have a stick of 1333 and another of 1600 the ram will be clocked at 1333 if it is in dual channel configuration.

another questions- about how big of a performace boost will i get if i get the 6950 over 5850 or 6870. because Now i Am starting to question wheteher or not i should spend $300 on a graphics card.

Well its an excellent architecture, very forward looking in terms of how it is made and a very well made card to boot. Its an excellent card but if you're only using less graphical challenging games feel free to revert back to the 6870 as the deal is effectively the same.