Power matters because Nvidia will start to break things that don't belong to them - some of the reviewers were already reportinging that the PCI-E power cabling was getting hot to the touch and the plastic sheething was getting soft. It would be embarrasing to say the least if Nvidia were told that they couldn't say the cards were PCI-E compatible due to grossly exceeding the power specification.
They've got nowhere else to go as regards power consumption.
TO be honest, that review was just being pathetic, cards running at 80C plus isn't new, hot air means plastic on some cables will get a bit more flexible, it wasn't a short in the cable causing a failure.
Does anyone have a problem witha 5970 hitting 400W? I don't, almost no ones mentioned it at all, CPU's aren't rated to draw more than 140W on an AMD board, anyone that overclocks a quad is almost most certainly doing so.
It really doesn't matter in any which way if a gpu inside the case draws extra power from an extra cable from a PSU more than capable of supplying the power.
Theres people out there who put LN2 in their systems, we overclock past specs all the time, OCUK sell pre-overclocked chips and bundles that exceed the specs.
Personally I would never run a dual, or a single Fermi, why would I want to get 5% more performance for 50% more cost at 60% more power and more heat issues to deal with in my case and more noise. I don't want to, but I could should I want to.
As said, my 5850 overclocked way beyond spec, runs plenty hot, I stick a decent 3rd party cooler on it, its running 36C full load, theres PLENTY of headroom for them to add a great cooler that would drop load temps to 50C, or below, if its going out of the pci-e spec power wise, do you think its really a problem going to a triple slot cooler, especially as their competition has already done so.
I haven't actually checked, aren't the 4gb higher clocked 5970's above a 300W power draw now anyway even at stock?
Basically, its easy to make, theres no magic, its a 295gtx with a different gpu and pcb layout, nothing more or less, it needs cooling, they can make it, it needs power, theres dozens of PSU's that are rated high enough, it needs a case with decent airflow, theres hundreds of them.
The only thing it doesn't have, is Fermi cores to put on the things, and thats where it all falls down.