Quote Originally Posted by Carfax View Post
I wouldn't say I was ignoring it. It's just that even though Cayman is a new architecture, it will still share very many similarities to it's predecessors.

Since they migrated towards a unified shader architecture, ATI's strategy has been to simply double all the resources on new designs. I think the only thing that ATI didn't double with the R800 was the memory interface, which remained at 256 bit.

And since Cayman won't be getting a die shrink, it seems like it will be a more refined version of the R800, rather than a next generation architecture.

Anyway, driver optimization is an ongoing affair with no end in sight. Cayman will undoubtedly receive performance improvements via driver tweaks, but I doubt it will get as much as Fermi, since Fermi was a completely new design.
Yes, Cayman will be a more refined version of the R800. Think RV670 > RV770. Along with increasing the resources, efficiency was increased as well.

Also, since Fermi already got a performance boost with the new driver, and Cayman isnt a completely new architecture, Id say performance boost would be similar between the two with new drivers. Which leaves Cayman with a higher performance and lower power consumption as well (most likely)

The Nvidia exclusive features dont matter enough to the majority of people to warrant a card thats slower and consumes more power IMO, but to those who think the features are that important, thats perfectly fine. To each, their own