There was a press release from Nvidia related to the performance differences between Intel Core 2 Duo, and Intel i7 processors. Basically they observed that the Core 2 Duo was just as fast in real world games tests.
They just published this article last week.
I published documented findings to this same effect back on March 12, 2009. Nvidia, if you and yours have an interest in being on the edge or close to it, you really need to pick up your pace.