I like how the OP tells us to discuss something without actually contributing himself.
I was always planning on coming back, i had sleep and work to attend to.
This has turned into quite the thread, bit of a can of worms i've opened.
I was planning on buying a GTX670 in a few weeks, and although this was in no way supposed to be a "spec me a GPU" thread, its kinda turned into one for me.
I've not been a PC gamer in quite some time, so all the comparisons to price and relative performance on previous generation cards means little to me, you say the 670 is overpriced, but to me, that's just how much it is (not sure if that makes sense.)
I've found myself asking why i'd decided on a 670. Partly PhysX and CUDA. Partly because as someone said, 9 out of 10 gaming rigs have 670's in.
The price of the ATI cards and the current free games have me tempted there way, but talk of driver problems put me off. Although if i'm reading right, has this been solved now?
Go for the 7970 and get a cheap 8800GTX for Physx. Tommybhoy will advise better on this
I didn't realise this was possible, very interesting as i have a 9800GTX. I could get a 7970 and still use PhysX. Although i imagine as its not officially supported, it could be problematic.
GTX 670 is a great card if you only want a single nVidia card.
Two of these in SLi has got to be the best current nVidia bang for buck:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-174-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=2379
This is an interesting thought, but i think the idea is flawed, you leave yourself no upgrade path, other than selling up and starting again.
Anyway, what a great read for me on returning from work. What a great forum!