It's nice to see ATI getting back into the high end market. I haven't used one of their products since the X800 Pro - although if you already have an 8800GT, combining a second into an SLI setup still remains a better value. But...welcome back ATI, we missed you. Your dinner was getting cold.

noxivs - Have you forgotten the first rule of the PC enthusiast? PREPARE TO UPGRADE. And just because you didn't know about something doesn't mean it wasn't out there for the discovering. You need to keep yourself informed - the second rule of the PC enthusiast. Companies like AMD don't develop new processor architectures to 'cash in' as some part of a conspiracy to force you to buy something you don't want, they do it to stay competitive - and you do want that right? AMD actually did us all a favor when they first developed their AMD64 architecture by keeping the eventual move to multi core in mind - it was part of their plan from the start. In the case of the original X2 they gace each core it's individual L2 cache but they share memory controller and hyper transport controller. The significance of this is that it is one of the things that allowed the first generation of X2's to remain compatible with the 939 single core platform and DDR memory. They probably had top jump through some hoops to keep power requirements compatible as well - for this reason I am running an X2 4800 balls out on a 939 platform and have been able to extend the life of my system considerably. A lot of people complained when the X2's came out that they did not support DDR2 but as I recall AMD formally announced (but it was certainly no secret) their dual core solution back in 2005 and made no secret it was working on DDR2 support which would effectively phase out the 939 platform - but they wanted their first dual core solutions to be compatible with existing hardware which was a smart way to give them a leg up on market penetration. This allowed you and me to use the new product before they phased out socket 939. So personally I want to THANK them for giving us a taste of dual core before it became necessary for me to replace my motherboard and RAM! Although the Phenom's current performance lags a bit behind Intel's latest offerings it is more than competitive and far less expensive (reminds me of the old K6/K7 days, actually...LOL) we certainly could not expect Intel to take the beating they have since 2003 and not respond - besides, AMD continues to show that they realize their only chance to stay competitive is to innovate and stay imaginative, and this only bodes well for all of us who game on PC's. Were I to build a new gaming rig today I would certainly go Intel but thanks to AMD's prescient design of the original AMD64 platform I don't HAVE to build a new machine yet. And when I do who knows - they field may be even once again. Good job AMD, keep innovating and here's to keeping the market competitive.