Enduro driver issues have nothing to do with AMD's desktop cards but you brought it up anyway. Should I have brought up how NV's laptop drivers killed their cards, or started talking about NV's hardware being more fragile (bumpgate scandal, GTX570/590's VRMs failing from overclocking, etc.)? No, because none of these things, or laptop drivers, have anything to do with GTX650Ti vs. HD7850 or the games the OP listed. Yet, you seem to be mixing and matching different issues and piling them all under the same roof.
what about the 7000 series issues commonly seen here on this forum (flicker, DX9 artifact and whatever?) that's way more relevant (and form what I saw AMD's reaction as with Enduro was never perfect) and the experience with current Geforces has been less problematic, but still, you don't get it, I'm just using it as one of the few arguments I have in favor of one card or the other, in the end you look at all the aspects to make a decision, I never said one option is absolutely the right one for him (my first post recommending the 650 ti was simply due to it being the best at regular or average prices for that range), I'm just showing pros and cons,
VRMs are not a driver fault, and I could point to the 7870's with bad resistors causing a lot of trouble, about the driver killing GPUs, you mean the fan speed thing? that was also a while ago, it's bad, but again, overall it's clear that NV have less issues with software, and that's all I'm trying to say, it's one of the aspects to consider, not the only one!
(my main PC uses an AMD card, I had plenty of good and bad experiences with both on the last decade)
Even if true, it doesn't magically produce 20 extra fps in Skyrim. GTX650Ti is a budget videocard. It's like making an argument that someone should have bought a GTX550Ti over HD6870 because you felt that NV had better drivers. You are recommending a card that's in a budget performance class against a mid-range one with OCing potential to reach GTX580/800mhz 7950. Using your logic, there are no AMD GPUs worth buying because you'll just keep recommending saving $ and getting a cheaper NV card or keep restating that NV's drivers are better so why buy an AMD card?
again, I'm not only talking about FPS, but about other aspects like price, power usage, size and software reliability.
and I do believe the 650 Ti performs adequately for a sub $150 card on Skyrim (although it's clearly slower than the 7850).
Again, you still haven't explained what driver issues HD7850 has in the games OP intends to play, and yet you didn't address the very large performance gap GTX650Ti will have in Skyrim or how without 2GB of VRAM it will be limited to very few mods.
About Shogun 2 I can't comment, since I don't really know.
I acknowledge the performance gap, I don't know what else you expect? the 650 Ti still looks good enough, I'm not seeing a 100% difference.
your recommendation was not a 2GB card.
You also didn't address the value proposition of killing 2 birds with 1 stone: Getting a 7850 2GB and selling off the 2-game coupon, bringing the price down below $150, and then taking full advantage of 2GB of VRAM for Skyrim mods.
again, it's not always so simple, as I said the 650 Ti is an easy card to find for $150 or lower, without rebates or selling stuff, that's up to the OP.
also, looking at the graph you posted it just shows how testing can vary, this shows the memory impact, specifically with the HD textures DLC as being huge
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6359/50609.png
while the graphic from hardwarecanucks shows no difference!?
The difference in performance between 40 fps range compared to mid-60s is a big deal because that's before ENB mods, etc. Also, you seem to be a strong proponent of bringing out the value card on GTX650Ti by saving $35 on the purchase, yet you didn't mention that a $150 HD7850 performs as well as a $195 GTX660 in this game, or that even the price/performance is worse for GTX650Ti since $150 is 30% more expensive than $115 but you get a 35% average increase in performance with the 7850 + 2 free games (Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider).
the 660 was never being discussed in this topic (it's clearly not a $150 card)
ENB series is not everyones cup of tea, and 1200p with MSAA 4x is to much for the 650 TI sure,
Silverforce11 and MrK6, your are both using $300 cards, but sometimes people want to expend the least possible and still play games, I think the 7770 and the 650 Ti are fine cards for what they are, both can play current games fine without pushing to much on settings and are clearly faster than the slower cards and cheaper than the others,
now, I will always agree that the 7850 is a great card, even more if you are into overclocking, but there are more considerations to make before making such a simplistic recommendation, if he wants to save some money and is worried about some of the other things I mentioned, I think the 650 Ti is a good choice, the 7850 is also a great deal, if you find one for the prices suggested here, it's an easy choice as a gaming card for the price/performance.