THG (Yes, yes...I know...) saying R520 will be 700mhz stock and "outperform the 7800gtx in any scenario" (Yes that sounds PR-like):

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews...30_205000.html

DB saying the R580 tapeout rumour is bogus:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23092 (post #16)

Take them for whatever they're worth. My apologies if this craps' already been posted.

About the 700mhz thinger:

It makes sense... 16pp/700mhz. Surely nothing is known about ALUs, TMUs, Vertex Shaders (although I assume 8), this, that and the other thing...But looking at fill rate, they'd be close in that theoretical situation. I know i'm not taking into account the different clocks G70 has, but then again R520's architecture is unknown, so those are variables that could lead to the vague quote Orton gave about R520 comparing to 7800gtx.

stock GTX: 430x24 = 10320
avg oc GTX: 500x24 = 12000
*rumored approx R520 clock*: 700x16 = 11200
avg overclock needed to compare in fillrate after oc: 750x16 = 12000

While I know the Inq is shoddy for cred, they did say a long while back (amongst other things of course) that ATi was getting 700+ mhz yields for R520, and could even be clocked slightly higher "towards 800mhz." Assuming they have the same number of vs (8), and fairly similar mem speed, it could just come down to which architecture is more effiecient, ie if ATi uses fatter pipes, more alus per pipe, or something else they could be better, or if nvidia's multiple clocks/mini-alu/more pipes-less clock is more efficient, they would be better...Or it could be a complete mish-mash. I just hope peeps don't look at ATi's part as inferior because of the pipes, if 16 is true as for what it looks like now it could be very well or equal or better, we just don't know because we don't know ATi's arch yet.

As for the G71 rumors, here is what i've heard most frequent:

Nvidia cancelled the ultra (faster g70), and has been working on a (90nm?) 32pp G70 which has been delayed a few months, most likely to appear in-between R520 and R580...assumingly right before Christmas. I think they're hoping that product will compete well enough with R580 to postphone G80 until they need it, and gain more revenue off of the GF7 series w/o retiring it too early. Sounds like a good idea to me. This should lead to some super-fast refreshes, much more of a advance than we're used to for semi-cycle parts.