New rumor about ATI Southern Islands

[Jowy Atreides]

GTS 240 was OEM only though, so a regular person would not be able to upgrade to it at all.

That's nothing unusual though, both companies have quite different naming scheme in the notebook segment.

Yes, you would.
How should a regular person know that, after three generations, where HD 5870 was faster than HD 4870 and that was faster than 3870?

A "regular person" probably buys a 7600gt from maplins for £80 and does no research.
Normal people walk into shops and buy what they are told is best.

The only people interested in the naming shift is flamebaters and pedants.
The regular computer users with no strange emotional attachment will see the 6970 being the replacement to the 5870 and get over it.

Every main product line in the 5 series will have a considerably faster replacement.

Whilst nvidia's renames were inline upgrades, this isn't. It's a shift.

Old 5970 ---Replaced by New/Faster--> 6990
Old 5870 ---Replaced by New/Faster--> 6970
Old 5850 ---Replaced by New/Faster--> 6950
Old 5770 ---Replaced by New/Faster--> 6870
Old 5750 ---Replaced by New/Faster--> 6850

All have faster parts succeding them, different names and elevated prices but ALL faster.

The 8800gt -> 9800gt brought no faster part for the midrange to succeed it.
What you saw was what you got, the same card in the same category as the previous gen.

There was no naming shift to lower the actual real world performance position of the 800 card. ATI do have an actual replacement.

Names change to alter perceived positions of performance, part upgrades are sequential and bring full performance upgrades across the board.

Thank you for saying Cayman will be slower than the 5870, someone is bound to dig that up in the future.