Which is better among ati 5970 vs gtx 480?

Well, since you have already said that ati 5970 comes with in your budget, I would suggest you to go for it, since it is the world’s fastest graphic card available now and excels in almost every single benchmark that you can test on. It was the first one to support the Microsoft Direct X 11 and the multi display potential called as Eyefinity. With two GPUs built on a single board, ati 5970 is now the undisputed champion in the league of graphic cards available right now.

gtx 480 on the other hand, can be considered as a fast graphics card, does not match with the ati 5970 mainly due to its single GPU contrary to the ati’s dual GPU. The gtx 480s FPS would be considerably lower than the ati 5970 and with dual slots that the later one provides it is obvious that you should choose ati 5970.

Hope this helps, but to me I guess comparison between a single GPU and a dual GPU is not justified. And they do not cost the same. ati 5970 would always cost you more due to the dual GPU slots.

Happy Gaming in case you are looking for a good gaming experience.