I get the feeling you're one of those "let them eat cake" types that thinks that *70 and *80 cards are common and not something that rich older men like us grab because we have extra money to spend.

I recommend a look at steam hardware survey for a harsh dose of reality.

I'm not sure what you consider a mid range PC, but I do know what the suppliers consider one. And it's around 500-600 at most today.

And frankly, "oh noes coal power" argument is equally silly. You're talking a hundred watts savings at best, and that's when machine is under load.

Considering the total usage of these top end cards on steam (below 1%), it's literally these savings are less than a rounding error.

I don't think you understand. These cards cost more than an entry level PC. 980 in fact costs more than midrange PC. Alone.

If you're shopping for a card like this, you really aren't going to give a damn about power bill increase from it.

So spend them. Market is choke full of after market water cooling solutions for people like you. Because people who are target audience for these cards aren't going to balk at a cost of a water cooling addition to their box when it's a tiny fraction of what they paid for said box.

Which is why you're not target audience for top end cards. People who are, if faced with problem of heat, simply spend another hundred on a water cooling solution that is very quiet and a much more efficient PSU that would easily run one-two of those cards with minimal fan activity.

You can hack the drivers and graphics card's report name, or you can roll back to said drivers. The functionality is there, it's just disabled in current drivers.

Depends on resolution used. At 1440p, you're already going to strain a lot of graphics cards to the limits, especially if you want relatively stable 60fps.

At 2160p, you're pretty much going to need the best of the best.

Depending on your country, time for payback assuming ten hours uptime daily under load is between three and ten years (ten years for mine, did the math about a week ago).

Chances of a graphics card surviving that long, especially under constant load are pretty slim.

Not really. If you're burning 400-1000€ on a graphics card, you are not going to care about a few extra euro a year in your electric bill.

I can understand this on the low end, but "woo power savings" on the high end is nothing short of amusingly silly. High end has always been and will always be about one thing and one thing alone: raw power.
There's a reason why power supplies that push 1500 watts enthusiasts exist.

Considering that most of the released custom cooled 970s have a 8 pin and a 6 pin, it's far more likely that dual six pin is barely enough for stock card rather than a massive overkill.

Then you don't want a super expensive gaming card, but two cheapo nvidia cards in SLI.

How is it a violation of TrueCrypt's license when TrueCrypt's license specifically ALLOWS for this?

For the idiots who can't even read the story: TrueCrypt's license allows for taking all the code and reusing it, with only requirement being using a different name.

"Okay"

PC sales crash again.

P.S. 7 is supported until 2020.

Is that the new shill angle? Because I suggest you folks rethink your strategy if it is, since it looks even less like 7 with that ridiculous flat look.

Microsoft tried it already with 8. REALLY really tried it with 8, removing 7 from everywhere it only could.

It was a disaster. PC sales crashed. As we discovered, forcing 8 on people did result in marginal increase of sales of 8, and a massive reduction of sales in PCs.

Finally someone important at microsoft realised that in winning the battle of 8's adoption over 7, they were losing the war of keeping PCs being the primary customer computing platform, and 7 was quickly pushed back into OEM chain. I think that this particular lesson was painful enough for microsoft not to even think of trying it again for at least a few years.