Quote Originally Posted by Dimitriman View Post
I find around 11k proper for the Cayman 6870, sits right between 5870 and 5970 and beats the 480GTX (480 cuda) by about 10%

That does not seem too high for me at all it's exactly what I would expect from anything that earns the name 6870. In fact the jump achieved from 4870 to 5870 was much more significant than that.

Thus in my opinion, 11k Vantage is actually rather low for a generation change.

But we can forgive AMD given the lack of 32nm production process.
4870 to 5870 was a shrink with double the SPs

im thinking this should be treated more like a 2900 to 3870, built to save money, not increase performance massivly.

keep in mind that whatever they do now, will probably just doubled when they go to 28nm, which means it will be near the same size. so if they do 300mm2 now, it will be right around 300mm2 at 28nm, with about double the perf.

if all they are doing is dropping the 5th SP to shave a little space, it might get them back 5-10% board space, for a 2% perf loss. which they then use to beef up tessellation, and were back to the same size, but 30% faster in Dx11, same in older games.

however im betting its not a simple SP layout change, something massive has to happen to see any real perf change, and im betting the 6870 will not be any larger than a 5870