Originally Posted by
Mad Pistol
A "rebrand" should never be considered a new architectural design. Nvidia's G92 architecture was a complete joke. I mean, it was good, but I can't believe they made it last over 3... yes. count it... 3 generations (8800 GT, 9800 series, and GTS 250) Each time, they renamed and re-launched it. What a joke.
In this case, AMD is using the same micro architecture for the 6800 series, but it has been significantly reworked. The chips are smaller, the power consumption is down, and the performance is up compared to the 57xx series. In this case, it's a new chip, not just a rebranded Cypress or Juniper chip. So, in this case, it's obvious that AMD is tweaking their design from year to year, even if it's not into a totally new generation. Nvidia is famous for doing the same thing, only Nvidia rebrands entire cards, not just the architecture. That's a pretty significant difference.