Good thing SOW is Nvidia's friendly !

[Flanker35M]

S!

Well summed up Blackdog. People rave about FPS shooter benchmarks, snip parts suitable for them and tout either brand being superior to another. Which is pretty useless.

Going to the bang for the buck thing. Take AMD 6950HD x 2, cost less than a 580GTX and kicks the living crap out of it in performance. Even 580GTX in SLI is only marginally faster than 6950HD in XFire. The 6970HD is equal or even faster due the much improved scaling AMD has managed to achieve. Even so with 6970HD you save almost 300USD compared to 580GTX SLI..with that money you can get a SSD disc to boost loading times and/or more RAM

It is all about what you want to invest. Let's take an example. I have now an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T BE which loses to the Intel 980X in raw performance. But when looking at what I get for the money AMD wins. Here the AMD costs ~230€ vs. ~930€ of the Intel 980X. So a whopping 700€ difference there.

Motherboards for both are roughly the same price (X58 and 890FX) so not much difference. Intel uses triple channel so need 3 x RAM sticks where AMD with it's dual channel takes 2x. A small saving there too, yet insignificant IMO.

Now take the 580GTX which here is ~500€ vs. AMD 6970HD at ~390€. I save 110€ on the spot. So far I have spent 810€ less on the AMD than an Intel rig with nVidia. For the 6970HD my 650W Corsair PSU is enough, for the 580GTX safer bet is 700W+, again some tens, even over 100€ depending on PSU, more if need to upgrade.

So let's do some calculations and conclusions. I buy Intel 980X for 930€ + 580GTX for 500€ totalling 1430€. Mobo/RAM are not an issue, quite same prices. Now I buy AMD X6 1090T for 230€ + 6970HD for 390€ totalling 620€. The difference is 810€! With that I can add another 6970HD, a better PSU for XFire, a SSD drive and STILL costing LESS than the Intel/nVidia rig..and being comparable or even faster performance wise.

Bear in mind that if you go SLI on 580GTX the gap widens even more as you need a 1000W+ PSU to run it, those cost over 200€ here. And still the AMD rig is very close in performance and both an overkill to ANY game around at this point.

My point? Really what Blackdog said, the biggest and baddest stuff are used by a far less amount of players than the mainstream products, yet these being capable of running any game with good performance. Therefore claiming one brand is better than another is quite narrow minded. Boils down what you get for the money invested, not all have this "daddy pays" or born with a "golden spoon in mouth"

SoW will be a stress test for the systems we have, but yet it seems it needs more RAM(texture loading etc.), a good CPU(physics, DM/FM etc.) and less GPU(no tessellation or PhysX there). The top end GPU would be needed at high resolutions with lot of FSAA/AF used IMO.

Looking that AMD or nVidia/Intel is the only way to play a game is stupid. Use what you want, whatever floats your boat. There is no need being a fanboy of either brand, both do their job in any game today.

Have a nice weekend.