Hd5870 - $299

[gumballguy]

What has led you to this belief?

Has there been any articles or opinion pieces written anywhere on the net which suggests this is at all likely?

Hearsay. Backed up by as much fact as there is to say the 5000's are true next gen. Then again I probably missed some important leak or something lol.

Personally it wouldn't surprise me if it took most of their engineering time just coming to grips with 40nm. And that the benefits were just from their ability to increase the shader count. Then they added the bare minimum that they had to (dx11).

I'm not saying I predict anything. I'm saying it wouldn't surprise me.

I think we'll know soon enough.
If we get a doubling of performance, they've given it their everything.
If it's less than expected performance... theyre holding back

Whether holding back would let them hurt nvidia with a second wave or just tick off their customers more, I've no idea. Marketing may be the decider of that (average joe "dx11 ooh" vs xtremesystems kinda ppl focusing on real numbers)