The ATI Radeon 5XXX Thread

[btarunr]

As I said, the thing they were surprised was the aggressive pricing. Not the chip itself really. Of course it has been possible that they did not expect 800 SPs at first, but it was not like they would(or could, for that matter) have changed their own design.

Nope, their underestimation of RV770's "price/performance" translates into their gross underestimation of it, as there's not much left of it to "estimate correctly". Price/Performance estimation requires you to know 1. performance, 2. price.

Nobody, had the faintest clue about it having 800 SPs until the day it was launched and its official specs were put up. "NVIDIA are smart, powerful, brilliant, telepathic and knew everything at ATI" is a frail argument, not supported by anything that went on between Q2~Q3 2008.