If you're type of guy that buys highest-end hardware at once without thinking, then surely it'll scream...
until Intel comes w/ a faster working 990x and Nvidia takes out non-defective, fully functional (all shaders enabled) and die shrunk? GTX 485 in the next months.
I see no reason in going from HD 5970 Quadfire to GTX 480 Tri-SLI other then lack of Crossfire compatibility even w/ new profiles or ATi's worse drivers. Those are only software probs, we both know hardware issues of GTX 480 such as power consumption, temps and the list goes on...
Phenom X6 does same job, so do Leadtek's CUDA encoding card. Somewhat slower but it doesn't cost you a liver. Have you ever heard of price/performance? LOL.
If it's a stock i7 920, then OCed 1090 will beat it to death.
Both in overclock they'll compete head-to-head. One is better in some benchmark, other is weaker in another bench. 6 Cores VS 4 cores + HT. 980X performs %25 better. But the thing is, Thuban is an advanced Phenom 2. It has much greater clock per clock efficiency then Phenom 2s or fast Core 2 CPUs. It's up there with mid end i7's.