not huge I agree, but it's something positive.
and it's 115 vs 150 $...
$35 for a 35% performance increase is not a big deal? You know people upgraded from GTX580 to GTX680 for just a 35% performance increase? Or that a $450 GTX680 is just
36% faster on average than $200 HD7870 and it costs $250 for that level of an increase? You are paying $35 extra for a 35% performance increase + HD7850's overclocking potential if you want to explore that later when games get more demanding.
Right off the bat GTX650Ti is starting off in the 40 fps range in Skyrim at 1080P without any mods. If you are going to suggest that people drop AA or IQ settings, do you go into threads when someone is buying a GTX680 and tell them to just save $250 and purchase a GTX660/HD7870 instead? That's exactly what you are doing here. At the low end every dollar counts a lot more than at the high-end. That means saving $35 on the low end is FAR more detrimental to performance than say downgrading from a GTX680 to a GTX660Ti/HD7950.
What about Skyrim with mods? Even if you drop AA completely, GTX650Ti can only deliver 28 fps. It's unusable!
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-vtx3d-hd-7870-black-tahiti-le/20/
as far as drivers go, Nvidia has consistently delivered a less problematic experience over the last few years
Disagree. HD5000 and 6000 series had bullet-proof drivers. It's only starting with HD7000 series that AMD had more serious issues relating to the greatest architectural upgrade from VLIW to GCN architcture since 2005's R500 in the Xbox 360. Fermi cards were actually much more prone to erratic frame times compared to HD6950/6970 series. You can check TechReport's reviews if you don't believe me. Fermi itself needed 6 months to get performance to a reasonable level. I know as I had GTX470s. In the OP's case, he'd be upgrading to Catalyst 13.2 Beta 4s. If you want to specifically point out what issues those drivers have with the games mentioned on the OP, that would be far more helpful than starting to generalize across last "few years" of drivers between AMD and NV.
and the 650 Ti is easy to find for less than 150, the 7850 not always.
How is the avg. pricing of HD7850 relevant when I already linked it for sale right now for $150? Even if the OP doesn't get the card I listed, he should be looking for an HD7850 1GB/2GB card for around $150 over the next couple weeks because GTX650Ti is a serious compromise in 1 of the games he listed. We have seen plenty of deals for HD7850 at the $150 price level. I would even say it's worth it for him to wait a couple weeks and try to find a $150 deal on the HD7850
2GB card, specifically for Skyrim + mods.
There have already been
$140 deals on the HD7850.
Also, if the OP spends his time to find a good HD7850 card with a solid cooler and considers overclocking, the performance increase can be
very rewarding. HD7850 has the potential in it to reach HD7950's level of performance for just
$150! People paid $500 for that with the GTX580. Now it's a matter of finding an HD7850 with a
good cooler and getting MSI Afterburner. GTX650Ti is a budget card through and through. There is no hidden 30-50% air overclocking potential in it. HD7000 series is actually the best series for novice users to learn the art of overclocking since there is so much room with HD7000 cards, it leaves a lot of room for error in case you move the slider too far. HD7000 series are very conservatively clocked from the factory.