More like three to four years and motherboards are not **that** expensive in the mainstream market. I also doubt that "most" gamers will be faster than GTX 690. It is quite scary how well GTX 560 and even GTS 500 still sell.

You will fight and die for old tech, won't you?

haha.

When it is great tech, sure, and for somebody looking for an easy overclock plus great performance without much heat and cheaper than the new tech, Sandy Bridge absolutely cannot be beaten.

i am in. Sandy sounds great to me

Nothing wrong with Sandy. Other than she is going away and the good deals will be fading soon.
-- it just appears i got particularly lucky with Ivy getting to 4.9GHz.

Did Intel give you it? They could have cherry picked it.

It doesn't make me any less lucky to get 4.9GHz (so far) on an engineering sample

You're extremely lucky to be able to hit that speed, no doubt. Most people are topping out at around 4.5ghz, some even less.

i have top-notch cooling and it is still getting really hot (near 90C) under full load with a Noctua NH-DH14 at 4.8GHz
- i suspect that my ECS MB was not reporting the temperatures properly

To get 4.9GHz without overheating, i expect that Ivy will need the Thermaltake Water2.0 Pro with an extreme fan profile and will probably not be able to run 5.0GHz without the very best watercooling.