I cant see a monopoly anywhere here - it's a duopoly.
That is already lowest level of competition - the last I as customer want is those two companies working together, which already might be case on pricing - they just need one of each company meet for lunch.
Cartel rings a bell? In which market situation would you expect them?

PS: Well in fact they do. They just force you make a decision for one or the other, but isn't that what competition is all about?

Did anyone notice the title of this thread:
FAQ-QUESTIONS,release date,system specs, for SOW

then this thread should have been locked from the beginning - we can't expect any of those questions to be answered before release.

:rolleyes:

Has anybody been following this GTX 460 Hawk. What a bargain. If you have to spend 1200 dollars on a i7 975 why not see if this thing will work for 270 dollars instead of spending another 600 on a video card.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkrZPra2scg

To be honest, if you're spending that much on an i7 975, you probably want a faster graphics card. Have you got any benchmarks for the Hawk?

Did very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay0gG...eature=channel

I'll get it and if it's not so hot I'll get a 470 but I bet it will do well. I'll get a wackier one later.

So it's pretty good for a 460, but it's still only a 460. Probabably a bit quicker than a 6850 and a bit slower than a 6870, and priced in between the two (at least here in the UK - £146, £164, £183).

Unfortunately we're still waiting to learn what SoW really wants, but I don't think it will run at maximum quality at a high res with high fps on a 460, so if you had a 6 core i7, I wouldn't skimp so much on the GC.

The 470 is probably the only card without any right for existence.
If you really want to go for the middle, wait for the 570.

Doh!