RV870 single-core, R870 dual-core, R800 quad-core?

[Calmatory]

Is it even confirmed that RV790 has 960 shaders? I wouldn't be surprised if RV770's replacement has more than that.

No, but that would make some sense. If the pads aren't being shrunk, then anything below the current size would make the chip pad limited. 40 nm parts are 25 % smaller, 800 -> 960 is the closest match which would increase the shaders 25%(1000). However, the shader area of the core isn't too big, so they probably could do +35% increase in shaders(1080 and beyond) whilist keeping the chip under current size.

What will be done? If it is direct increase in shaders, I wouldn't be surprised if they went +1100 for RV790 and +1500 for RV870. If they are pad limited with 256-bit MC w/ GRRD5, they can not reduce the die area too much without being pad limited again, they can only make the chip bigger. The question is, how far are they willing to go with the die size? Obviously big dies do not fit their strategy. Their superior strategy is biting them right now?

For me it seems that both cores are going to be at least as big as RV770 is. RV790 - 5-10 % bigger, RV870 - 20-33 % bigger would be my bet. Now just calculate how many shaders fit to that area and that would be my bet.