Crytek announced through a german website to expect the release to now fall in Q3, which is anytime between July and September.
An open/closed beta will be released soon. I would expect this to come in Q2 (April to June). I am not sure if it's been confirmed but rumours speculate that 20,000 keys will be made available for this, presumable, MP beta test.
Somewhere in Q3 we can expect an SP and MP demo, probably a couple of weeks before the final retail release of the game.
Taking everything into account I would expect the game to be released in August. (6 months from now then *groan*)
Recent reports, with a somewhat unoptimised engine, show a framerate average of between 20-30 fps with a Core 2 Duo 2.93GHz, 2Gb RAM and a 8800GTX. I believe these reports are from running at a 1920x1200 resolution.
Everyone pins hopes on an 'unoptimised' engine that will, miraculously, give 60fps when released. I would err on the side of caution and say you are going to need an 8800GTX SLi setup to get close to 60fps at HD resolutions such as 1920x1200
No, I dont work for NVidia lol