Lets be objective here. The card is good, but not great, this is not G80 reloaded. Ati did incredibly well to put out a card that is in most scenarios twice as fast as it's predecessor and of GT200. In some cases it even makes a GTX295 beg for mercy...

But that isn't revolutionary. What is revolutionary in my opinion is that Ati is first to the market. Make no mistake, GT300 will beat this card, it's granted. The speculated specs of GT300 project a slightly greater than 2x performance of GT200, so it will get beaten (IMO at least).

The nice thing is that prices will settle until GT300, and nvidia is going to have to watch their prices if they want to keep their customers. People won't pay a 50% price markup for 10% improvement over the competitor, they better price their top dog no more than 449-499.

The HD5870 is a great buy nevertheless, and we should all thank Ati for keeping their feet on the ground with pricing. I truly hope never to see a $600 dollar launch ever again.