[citation][nom]nebun[/nom]i am so sick and tired of people asking about power usage!!! if you can afford to buy this type of cards then you should be able to pay for your electrical bill, if not then don't bother. personally I don't care if my system uses 200W or 1200W, who gives a crap. if you want performance you should understand that the system is going to be power hungry[/citation]
When you can decide between ATI/Nvidia with price and performance, power consumption and heat are the next two factors even a gamer would look at. The thing with the fermi chips is that they should not be running this hot, nor should they need the amount of power that is required with the current 4xx cards. The only thing different between the 5xxx and 4xx is that the Geforce's are GPGPUs, everything else is the same.
Just because you have enough money to buy the card, it does not mean you have the money in the long run to cover the costs of power/cooling. Some people "splurge" on their video card. Heat/power was the deciding factor for me when it was 4xxx vs 2xx. The Geforce's ran cooler, had lower power consumption, and performed on par or better to a comparable Radeon. Guaranteed, if a die shrink comes out that helps the 4xx's power/heat, sales will go up in a heartbeat. I have been on Nvidia's side since the 5 series, and I used 3dFx cards before then. Nvidia usually does well, but the 4xx series is just a hiccup that will pass.