Oh wow. SNAP.
I can kind of see how it makes sense though.
Its like nVidia fx vs 9700pro - tied in performance.. in DX8 games.
Vertex processing power in current GPUs has increased dramatically over last 10 years... but all games made nowadays are pretty much console ports. And XBOX360 and PS3 use GF7/X1900 type graphics...
Even "high end" GPUs selling today like GT240 and G92 score just "adequately" in Ozone3D 18million triangle, geometry instancing demo.
Code:
18 million triangles
8800GTX - 13fps
HD3870 - 25fps
8 million triangles
8800GTX - 28 fps
HD3870 - 33 fps
Perhaps this is why games keep the poly count down, and how/why Fermi is so much faster with vertex processing... GF8 was just slow at it to begin with.