A super computer is only a super computer because it's super, and takes more power than the combined energy usage of the world's vibrator supply. On full buzz.

As soon as it fits on a desktop it's not really super, is it? Because somebody could put 1000 into a big cluster, and that would then be the super computer. 

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

...is if "GPGPU" stuff were supported at the OS level, thereby accelerating *all* aspects of the computing experience, rather than just stuff that's compiled specifically for whatever GPU.
Maybe Microsoft should be investing in a "Windows 7/GPU" (Like Windows 2/386) for all the normal people out there that know not to touch Intel video hardware.

Nvidia's new naming gimmick. Graphics cores? They're called stream processors. So you get 960 "Graphics Cores" from four cards? Why not just buy two 4870's or a 4870x2 like someone stated above. Since ATI's newest offerings have 800 "Graphics Cores" per card or 1600 for the 4870x2. 

I know that it will take custom software to enable what Nvidia's CUDA does but it seems to me that ATI would have a better solution if they decide to get into this HPC market.

AMD 4870X2: 230 GFLOP dual precision. And it costs $500, not $5000 or $50,000.

RichW, AMD already has stated it will support OpenCL which is destined to become the standard for GPGPU. OpenCL is still 6 months away, but it should replace NVidia's CUDA and the Brooks+ api AMD is backing with an interoperable standard capable of hooking into OpenGL.

Many if not most scientific PC environments and projects are Linux-based rather than Microsoft/Windows-based.

Two big factors that would influence potential supercomputer customers away from an ATI-based solution are the quality of ATI's Linux drivers (i.e. much worse than nVidia's) and also the lack of a developed API like CUDA.