AMD 7850 v Nvidia 560ti

Big screen gaming??? The 7850's your best bet... 2GB will be ideal at that res.. Plus power draw's wayyy lower.. you could probably crossfire it later with another 7850 and still keep the same PSU...

I noticed the second pcie slot runs at 4 lanes.. You won't lose much in terms of performance and once you get a PCIe 3.0 board.. Running 3.0x4 will be like running 2.0x8..

I'm aware that CUDA is supposed to speed up encoding h264 video (which I have been messing around with, for backing up my HD PVR recordings) but I've also read that the quality isn't quite as good as that from CPU only.
As for PhysX, it's not something I know too much but IIRC, it adds destructible scenery and the like to the game environment (if the game has been coded for it)


I guess that's an option but I'll probably stick to a single card.. less complicated that way : )
I think either one of these cards on their own will be large step up from what I have already.

I'm in the same boat. It would be really great if the 660 was out now! I don't want to wait until August.

My somewhat limited experience has always been better with Nvidia over AMD/ATI. Of course, for some reason I seem to have had Nvidia in my laptops and AMD/ATI in my desktops. But longevity in games and drivers support makes a difference. This was before PhysX mind you. But Catalyst 12.7 is out next week and that might help things on the AMD side at least for now. I think the issue is AMD is always late to the party with their drivers. Again, not the best for user experience.

In the June Guide They have the 560ti as the best for $220 with a strong recommendation to go up to $250 for the 7850. Yet you can find some 7850's (HIS, Sapphire) for close to $220.

At this point, I'm tempted to just live with my Intel 4000 graphics on the IVB i5 and just wait Nvidia out, but it's not something I'm happy with and will probably cave when the Asus 7850 comes back to Newegg. I'm not convinced that MSI has better performance/design.

Both companies have had driver problems from time to time. AMD was late recently with Crossfire support for new games, but that won't be relevant in this case.
Your PSU will easily handle either one. Both are known to be quiet. AMD uses less juice, especially under load, and has Eyefinity multi-monitor gaming. NVidia has PhysX, and more robust 3D in games. It isn't an easy choice, but fortunately I don't think either one could truly be called a "bad" choice. How much more expensive is the HD7870? That was the choice I made recently, and so far I'm happy with it. I got the XFX Double-D version, and it stays quiet even when folding.

I've done a bit of further research into PhysX and CUDA and both look decent features. The PhysX effects do look nice in the games that support it but there's only a couple of those I'd want to play. CUDA, again, would be useful but there's a fair chance I'd never get round to setting it up with the programs I use.
It looks like I'm leaning towards the 7850, with it's lower power useage, it's slightly newer tech/more powerful and it also looks like it's bundled with a game I'm actually likely to play (although I'm still to double check that it is actually available)

@recon-uk

Those 2 cards you linked look pretty decent too but I think I'll put the extra £70+ towards a decent 120gb SDD, like a Crucial M4 or Force GT.. although I'll be off to the SSD sub forum for further info on those : )