yasamoka wroteAMD Drivers and unusable shaders? How? It's just that Nvidia cards support CUDA while AMD cards don't (they opt for Stream, an open-source option).
The new generation of Nvidia cards (GTX 6xx series) are seriously crippled in terms of compute performance. Disregarding the fact that the GTX680 has almost the same memory bandwidth as the GTX580 (192.4GB/s) while the HD7970 has 264.4GB/s, the GTX670/680 cards are intentionally crippled in terms of double-precision compute (FP64) that they barely match a GTX560Ti in such workloads. This helps to reduce die size, power consumption, heat, noise, cost and improves yield, The result is a card that is very good in gaming, but where many forms of compute are considered (such as Folding, Ray-tracing, etc...), forget it.
You might want to be careful what workload you are throwing at the graphics card in case you were aiming for the GTX670/680. It's already been shown that Dirt Showdown and Sniper Elite V2, both having advanced compute features, are much slower on those cards than on the HD7950/7970, which are compute monsters (hence the higher power consumption, heat, noise).
AMD's new 12.11 Beta 6(?) drivers have claimed to have fixed a long-standing issue with RAGE. You might want to check out the results.
I don't have my HD7970 with me now, but when I get it back, I'll be sure to run RAGE and test things, along with a Crossfire test with my friend's HD7950.
Even if the game was not fixed, or will never be fixed (which I doubt, I don't think Id will just leave an entire segment in the dust without support, neither will AMD simply surrender), you might want to look at it from another perspective. The HD7970 almost matches the GTX680 in most non-demanding games, surpasses it when the game gets tougher (Crysis, Metro 2033), and smashes it when compute is introduced (as is the case with Dirt Showdown and Sniper Elite). Hitman Absolution and Medal of Honor Warfighter, newest games out there, have ran better on the HD7970 than on the GTX680. We're not even talking about the GHz edition yet, or what happens when you OC, or how much better the 7970 scales with OC than the 680.
In addition to that, you get a cheaper card (by $60-100) 3GB VRAM vs 2GB, much higher memory bandwidth, more OC potential, raw compute capability, etc...
AMD's drivers are seriously better nowadays. They're trading punches with Nvidia on releasing application profiles on time. AMD has fixed many many many bugs in its drivers, and they're being continuously improved.
I've been on an Nvidia card (a GTX260) for the last 4 years, but this time AMD convinced me to switch. (I can't talk about next gens, ofc).
A lot of what you say is true, but keep in mind that very few games need high compute capability, and the games you listed are an exception rather than a rule. I'd rather have a low heat/noise card than compute performance i'll very rarely need. (in my case i actually do gpu programming, but i don't need double precision performance).
as for the amd card being better with more demanding games, it's not so clear cut and very game dependent. AMD have always been better at Metro as you point out. but then last time i checked nvidia had the upper hand in battlefield.
It's a toss up between the two at the moment, but i've seen a lot of reviews and PC magazines recommending the quieter and cooler nvidia card.
