everyone should know by now never trust whatever each CPU or GPU company put on their spec sheet, yes it sounds cool on paper but when it finally release it'll not performaning anything close to what they say on a real world application.

after reading all of this i feel like i need a new PC, i am still using single core CPU and nvidia 7600GT for PC gaming :(

Its gonna be a bitch to program for and i will probably pass because it will take several generations before it becomes standard in games

???

I wouldnt underestimate ATI's upcoming R800.

ive always prefered ATI cards due to pricing

But can it run Crysis?

I j/k. It'd better.

Scratch me getting the GTX295 now though, better off saving a few months then getting one of the newer DX11 cards

I don't think GPUs are ever very hard to program.

I'm not a games programmer but from what I've seen the algorithms for GPUs are pretty straightforward. It's all embarassingly parallel stuff, if you have twice as much hardware you just calculate double the pixels/vertices in the same timeframe or you add more effects.

Not to mention that much of the hardware will be used by the graphics drivers and DirectX, with games not even having to worry about all the details.

Underlined is truth, most of the work is talking to Direct X and getting it to dance to your tune. Thats pretty much the whole reason DX exists is so that code will run on a massive variety of GPUs, not just the specific type you programmed on.

Bolded is less so, i cant find the words to explain atm but its basically like the code gets fed in the same, it's how quickly the GPU can do it, not the amount you tell it to do.

Bugger it, it's late i'll try and explain more in the morning.

Now we need some great PC exclusive games that take advantage of all these powerful GPUs.

But there are none on the horizon at the moment. It's kinda strange and unusual, back in time I remember always having a few upcoming graphical powerhouses for the PC to look forward to and be hyped about.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=54026

Its an interesting thread -> Cell vs GPGPU vs LRB, quite technical but for those whom are interested.