2-3month failures? wha? I mean. Thats impressive, you guys should stress test for manufacturers SSD wise my recommendation is based on the end users experience of it feeling fast. We can go theoretical all day long. Eg: what in gods name was AMD doing when they came up with bulldozer and why intel does what it does... (this links with the final point...)

I can definitely agree ATI drivers aren't the best in that going in with a wrecking ball and leaving that as is might be an improvment in some cases... But credit where its due - ATI drivers are very compatible... I recall using some nvidia code for a GTX card on my 5750 to get some experimental stuff working with OpenCL. I mean seriously - nvidia GTX drivers for an ATI card. Well played Though I'm impressed that it doesn't affect ATI users more than just knowing what each checkbox does and whatnot.

Didn't mean to be agressive, sort of skim read your reply as I'd just got home and caught onto ATI, Driver, glitches, intel, intel, i7 and... Yeah. Rule of thumb - FX series tend to be innovative and new. With that comes rather a lot of 'stuff' that we simply can't quite get our heads around. Eg. why they use less power run a little hotter and deliver less power in some scenarios and much more in others with no relation. Personally I'm avoiding intel anything - since the AMD switch was my revelation that 60C stock is NOT acceptable compared to 40C on an unlocked and OCed chip with stock coolers. As for graphics, I like ATIs value though I'm a harsh customer when it comes to drivers...

My bias towards AMD is more of a 'okay intel does everything you will ever do for 20 years at 500 frames/sec at double the cost'. Okay. But why? You really wont notice the 440frames that dont get displayed on your monitor. But I'll notice the $200 alright XD And to top it off, intel have had VERY aggressive marketing in the UK and people buy intel because its 'cool' and has 'HD graphics' with 'enhanced yadida' and so on. Then theres the ultrabook bribery and whatnot which tends to use the market to attain a monopoly. I have a similar attitude on the sainsburys vs tesco wars. Of course I wont sustain that a Phenom ii x6 or top of the line AMD is the best for everybody - I recognise intels' xeons trump opteron, i7 trump phenoms and etcetera. I however dont agree with intel promoting cpu power alone and using marketing to convince everybody it is fact. If intel have their way - developers can take the cyanide pill: they only just got OpenGL 3.1 more or less right and their latest support for anything is not quite up to what I call an ATI driver kludge.

Though on the heat issue, its worth noting: ATI heatsinks while gaming. No touching. Ever