IGN's article is ridiculous as the performance in a customized system is much improved in relation to a PC running Windows. If there is any point in the piece is to show that a poorly designed system with a R700 GPU can outperform the PS3 and 360, something anyone with a little bit of technical knowledge could tell without building that machine.
Also, regarding the point of how much the next Sony and Microsoft consoles can improve, I don't think Nintendo is worried about it. They will all be stuck in the TV's 1080p resolution and thus there isn't much more than can do after they reach 60fps, which the R700 will have no trouble in doing with current games. Polygons are not an issue and it would need much more power to improve lighting in a significant way. I doubt they will add more textures because it would be expensive and games would take a lot of disc/download space and will take forever to load in memory. As such, it is more likely that third parties would follow the Nintendo standard and do minimal improvements in Sony and Microsoft's next platforms.
