I think the whole PC industry needs a kick up it's backside tbh.
Looking at games first: From the software developers to the hardware manufacturers, to whoever. I see pitiful excuses for games coming out and selling by the truckload, and it's a crying shame because although it gets the sales, it's not really what people want.
Look at MW3 sales. They are huge, but I've not met many people who think MW3 is that more enjoyable than Black Ops or MW2. In fact a lot of people I know, both console and PC gamers, still prefer MW1 or MW2 to the current game.
Having said that, there are some amazing games out there, I personally miss the days of Mafia II. When it came to this christmas, and my PC is back at Uni and I have just a netbook at home, and watching all the christmas adverts and snow and such, I actually reminisced about the days when I used to play Mafia II in the snow. Talk about being sad and too immersed in the game, but hey it's the truth. There are some really good games that were released in 2011, way more than in 2010, I still have a large backlog of games I want to finish playing in the coming weeks. You can't reasonably expect every game to be innovative or have new features because people will actually run out of practical/implementable ideas. Many games do have a few small new ideas at a time, and it all builds up.
Although one thing I can't accept is the fact that people release buggy games. With multi million pound/dollar budgets, these guys should be taking the time and care to iron out just about every bug. When Metro 2033 came out so many people struggled to open it let alone play it, let alone enjoy it in all it's glory cos it's demanding as hell.
When it comes to GPUs, I don't pay bills but I care about temperatures, I don't want to be sitting at the PC sweating :/ I'd value a quieter card to a less power hungry card, but the two go hand in hand and it's one of the reasons I'm excited for what the next 28nm generation of GPUs bring.
At the end of the day, innovation drives the world of technology. The people who steer it are the corporations, the nVidias and AMDs and Intels of this world. But who fuels the car? The end user, with cash.
And the reasons why you see people buying Xfire setups, the reason they buy 3d Vision (like me), the reason they get multiple monitor set ups, it isn't necessarily because it's cost efficient, or because it makes sense (nobody really needs multiple screens unless you're monitoring CCTV or something), but it's generally because it's what they want.
Some people buy watches, some buy cars and mod them, and some spend their hard earned ££s/$s on PCs.
On these forums perhaps, or on others, I bet you will see guys going from perfectly reasonable Phenom X4s to Bulldozer, or perhaps go from a HD6970 to a HD7970, or do other things which just seem crazy. They might not do research or whatever, it might be a waste of money. In reality, looking at cold hard facts every single person on this forum is wasting money on a PC, because for just about all of us our PCs do more than we need them to.
I get taught in a microeconomics module that for any rational choice, the benefits of that choice must outweigh the costs.
But as the saying goes, the one thing you cannot account for is taste.
At the end of the day, that's why we all pay a cost above the true value of all this new hardware. It might just be marketing bs, in fact it probably is in most cases, but all of us here pay more for our our hardware than it is worth because we all love PCs.
I don't even know how much of this post makes sense, but ima hit post anyway.
