PC hardware manufacturers - change the paradigm.
Its an age old argument that holds true, now more so than ever - "Go out and buy a PS3 or X360!!"
Less than the price of this card alone and, ultimately, much more capable a system than your typical PC of the same price, because games developers write titles that are guaranteed to run well (not necessarily play well tho) on every single PS3 or X360 out there.
And now for our extra wonga we see what? A whole 3fps improvement! Wow, thanks. And as games become more complicated and visually 'rich' (read slow) the percentile will reduce further still with each new iteration of gfx card.
The feature gap is closing in as PC type casual functionality is continually added to these consoles - MP3, Videos, Pictures, web surfing (is this on Xbox yet?), email etc etc etc. A large proportion of people require nowt more.
Of course there will always still be room for PC hardware of many different configurations, just not top end gaming monsters that cost a small fortune.
...and this is coming from a person originally into PC gaming too!
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And no I dont work for Sony/Microsoft gaming. Im just saddened by this continual push that will ultimately kill the PC as a games machine. If anything, I think there is definitely a need for a radical slow down of performance improvement efforts made, slow down on the sheer amount of new gfx chipsets and new cards out there. Perhaps a few announcement every few years, to give the games developers time to slow down, write titles that look and run well on modestly priced hardware. Plus new hardware will be received well because it will be bigger news to the enthusiast.
If anything, such a move will benefit Nvidia and ATI because they can price one spec of gfx hardware at a good set price and lower their production costs for that same spec over time, similar to how Sony+MS do things.
@El-Reg editorial - can you commission me to write a full article on this problem with the industry!? I wont charge much for it! ;-)