Of course, if I would get a GPU like that I would really think about a new CPU. The reason to keep it is that high-end CPUs (when I bought the 955 the only AMD CPU above it was the 965, but that's just a 955 with a 0.2 GHz overclock using the same stock cooler and I would never pay for something I could do myself) hold their own nicely over the years. An overclock would probably give me some more time with this CPU. Of course, it isn't a new CPU now and after 5 years it would surelly deserve a rest.

About Mantle, I agree with that: AMD exclusivity is a problem. I think that if DX12 delivers a close, good enough, result compared to it, it will become the norm and Mantle will have problems. Good news anyway since it is avaiable for any combinations of CPU + GPU vendor.

PS4 can be CPU limited, of course. I was only saying that the GPU won't suffer with problems related to CPU capacity to feed it. AI, Physics and any other CPU oriented task will need to be careful. Games like FF14 probably suffer from bad optimization and last gen oriented development. With PS4 and X1 we will start to see more "next gen thinking" applied to development and PC games will take advantage form this new techs too, so it's gain-gain for everyone.

About X1, I totally agree. DDR3 really is a bottleneck (I used to have a GT240 with DDR2 memory, but I really don't like to remeber this dark times). Both are AMD APUs with an unified memory pool but with a EDRAM cache on X1 to compensate the lack of bandwidth from the DDR3 memory. Of course, the EDRAM bandwidth is just a little better than the GDDR5, so it isn't doing much of a magic, but it definitively helps.

I feel what you are saying here. Yea I agree that the "next gen thinking" will be a benefit to everyone. Consoles in terms of architecture are closer to PC than ever. Imo, the biggest benefit will come from multi threading. Right now, many PC games do not utilize more than two cores. But I foresee this changing in the next several years, since both x1 and ps4 have a 8 core machine. Developers will have to begin to utilize all cores available in order to get the most out of the cpu. 

You can already see that next gen thinking being applied in a game like Planetside 2. Before it performed awful awful on AMD FXs cpus. But since the game is also being ported to the PS4 the development team had to revamp the engine to take advantage of multi core architecture like the FX series. The results are staggering to say at least, going from 40fps to 70fps average is pretty amazing. But this would not have happened if the PS4 did not exist. So there definitely exists a synergy between consoles and the pc world. 

Also, a bit off topic. I want to apoligize for the remark about you not building a pc since 2001. I was being sarcastic but still, I'm not trying to be offensive to anyone. 

I want to apologize too, I was being rude in my arguments. And that cores will surely be put to good use now and I'm actually expecting that we will get some advance regarding using GPU to do some intense physics, specially particles. About the sinergy, I think that when the consoles became HD, dev costs skyrocketed and devs had to create games for PS3, 360 and PC as separated projects with high costs for each one. This gen looks focused in creating a more common architecture between PC, PS4 and X1, cutting costs simply by allowing that more dev time is shared doing code that is pretty similar between platforms. I remember the guys form The Division saying that the game was being developed for PC and a team with 4 or 6 guys ported the existing code to PS4 in 3 or 4 months. This is almost nothing, it's incredible. And despite costs, less time dealing with platform-specific craziness mean more time to implement new things in the games. I wouldn't be surprised if developing games for PS4+X1+PC is acctually cheaper than in the last gen ports. The example you talked about in Planetside just shows how easy it is and how it can even be a benefit for anyone.

you cite three caracteristics that are exactly the results of "numbers" and art style

it seems pretty clear to me that you keep validating my point

I agree with what you are saying here.

To kind of get back on topic, I believe U4 will look good. Much better than what can be done on PS3 hardware of course. X1 will have a difficult time keeping up when games of similar quality come out. It was a big mistake taking ddr3+kinect over the more expensive gddr5. There is no denying it.