ROPS were NOT the weak point of the RV670 series

It was texture filling. Look at these tests hoom at B3d did on a RV670 w/ 3dMark06: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.p...postcount=2376

Just for kicks & since I'm currently reading a good book, I have just done a quick bunch of 3Dmark06 runs on my 3870 with various AA/AF configs.
E6600 @stock, 3870 @stock, Cat 8.5

no AF/AA 9883
16* AF/8*AA 8098
8* AF/no AA 8552
16* AF/no AA 8164
no AF/4*AA 9456
no AF/8*AA 9449
no AF/24*AA 8903

This was just one run of each config & I have stuff open in the background so not by any means scientific but there seems to be a pretty clear pattern.
I don't know about you, but it's pretty clear that it's AF that hurts the 3870 performance. Look at those numbers - AA is actually incredibly efficient. 8 x AF scores worse than 24 x AA!

If they doubled the TMU's, the AF issue should be fixed.

This makes sense anyways since no reviewers ever turn on AA w/o AF - however, the conclusion that it was AA killing performance was wrong.