I didn't say that was the only reason, but if I didn't had the oportunity to get the 8800GT that cheap, I don't know what I would have done in the end. But that is a completely different thing, we are talking about a 15w difference in a card that is 20% faster (actually 30% on their max OC), which is far from 95w and a 9% difference in the case of GTX295 vs 4890 CF (two fastest things in Wizzard's charts, they cost the same BTW). OC ability doen0t matter as the GTX295 OC wonderfully. Watercooling or aftermarket cooling? If you are going to spend more, you might as well want to spend a little more and get GTX285 SLI.
Buying a second rig won't save any money, you pay for the extra hardware.
Your point isn't good anyway. If money doesn't matter, that people wouldn't be considering the HD4890, they would simply go for the Quad CF with X2, the Quad GTX295 or Tri SLI with GTX285.
I don't care too much about what people do, because I'm just trying to help those inconscious (in the sense that they never thought about this) people, trying to teach them something indeed. They should learn to manage their money and think about these things. You say it only matters the money at hand (entry cost) at the time of the purchase, well with a less consuming setup you'll get that money much earlier. It's hypocritical to say you can wait until you have $500 but you can't wait until you have $600, when at the same time you are spending much less in that timeframe. Look at the extreme example I put above, in Denmark (Italy, Netherlands) after 1 year of use the HD4890 CF can cost 132 euros more than the HD4870 X2, 161 € more than the GTX295 and 107 € more than GTX285 SLI. (
Tri SLI'ing the GTX285 will consume a bit less than HD3890 CF in idle!!)(Notice how the numbers for the single GTX285 are the same as in Wizzard's review) For average Europe results, slash those numbers in half, they are still significative enough to the point of making GTX275/GTX285 SLI more appealing.
Again, using a different PC for web browsing, videos and all that won't save any money because the PC itself costs money. You only really save money if you buy something instead of another thing, not if you buy something on top of the other thing. I doubt any enthusiast will have a PC older than 2-3 years anyway, even if it is for watching videos.
The bottom line is that you can't talk about money arbitrarily. Either you care or either you don't. And with the current situation in the GPU arena, if you don't care you'd go GTX285 SLI (the least) because it's simply faster and if you do care, you should go for a setup that won't cost you more over the time, at least if you are conscious of how much it will cost you. Now that I have demostrated how much it can cost I hope that people in the EU take that into consideration, as it would be the smarter choice and also people in California or New York where the energy is expensive, for example.
Examples:
- Right now, if you want to break records you won't get HD4890 CF, you'll get GTX285 Tri or Quad CF/SLI or GTX285 SLI at least.
- If you just want one of the fastest things you can buy HD4890 CF
or just buy the 9% slower GTX295 for the same price and one year later instead of buying another $500 card(s), buy a $600 card because you could save $100 more in bills or instead of waiting one year buy in just 9 months, because you already saved the $500 in that time.
That's what a smart money conscious person would do. Again, if you have money to burn this doesn't apply to you, do with it whatever you want and know that I would do the same and that I'm jealous.
EDIT: OH! And BTW, it just takes Ati fixing the problem with power management not working in Crossfire to make all my points null (practical not theorical, the examples, the cards) and me happy because something done well. Even if Ati fans (a lot here) are unable to see it, I have not a problem with Ati at all, neither I have a problem with the HD4890, except for the fact that GTX275 is a bit better. The only problem here is 308w at idle, fix that, end of problem.
). On my previous card, a 512Mb 4870, Call of Duty 4 ran @ an average of 95 to 125 fps (mostly maxing out @ 125fps), in multiplayer, even higher in single player (4xAA, 16AF 1920x1200). Sorry W1zzard, but either your hardware is completely screwed beyond anything I've seen before, or you're biased to the extreme.
![[I.R.A]_FBi](https://tpucdn.com/forums/data/avatars/l/39/39344.jpg?1384761935){kind=avatar}
Not a big deal if you plan to liquid cool but thats a noise most people will find aggravating for sure. Any ideas on when the 58xx cards will be out?