Excellent update review. That is a serious push for going AMD...more or equal performance, less cost, and free games...the trade off being some power consumption/ noise depending on the specific card you pick. I know what decision I would come to. I hope if it was an individual that found this saving grace they give the person a bonus.
Your review got me interested in other cards gains. For anyone who is curious techpowerup did a review of the new drivers as well and found the 7870 had the largest % increase in FPS. Take it for what its worth, but their summary for all resolutions and games is as follows:
"The relative improvements for each card are:
- HD 7750: +4%
- HD 7770: +5%
- HD 7850: +4%
- HD 7870: +10%
- HD 7950: +7%
- HD 7970: +7%
- HD 7970 GHz: +7%"
terrybear I look forward to seeing how your numbers agree or not with the above (as I am sure others do as well).