New rumor about ATI Southern Islands

[ohnoitseddy]

I already said this. Not too many people will upgrade from a 5870 to a 6870. I don't think very many people upgraded from 8800gt to 9800gt either. People don't buy every generation, its too expensive. The people who are hardcore enough to upgrade every generation are likely a hardware enthusiast that knows better.

What I can see happening alot is people upgrading from a 4870 to a 6870 and being quite disappointed in performance, none of these people know a 6970 big chip is the real successor to their card because there never has been a single chip 6970. And if the bench marks are correct, they are looking at a 50-60% performance increase from a 2 generation wait, which is honestly really crappy. If I sold my card for 60 dollars(a 4870) and spent 215 dollars(taxes, shipping, 250-260msrP), I would feel I should have kept my old card or got something better. I think to really get use out of eyefinity, you need something with atleast 5870 power so that 50-60% performance jump would be even more disappointing if I got an eyefinity setup..

At the rate both company are pumping out stuff, I would expect a 3x increase or 1.7 per generation or 2.89.

Pricing won't help a regular consumer make a wiser decision because they paid a similar amount for their 4870.

If I'm not mistaken, you seem to be missing something here... So, you as an average customer, step into the hardware store with your $215 (or go online). What do you see there? Certainly not a HD5870 for that price. With some luck maybe a HD5850. And a HD6870. So purchase the HD6870, and guess what - you just got better bang for you buck, a higher efficiency and more features.

Granted, the HD5870 will probably go a little bit lower in price, due to the new series. But to expect $300 performance from a $215 card is somewhat questionable. What about looking at it the way around? You could spend $300 on a HD5870, and be very disappointed when you find out that your neighbor that spent only $215 (on a HD6870) got nearly the same performance - along with better tessellation etc.

So, in other words, I believe most consumers don't want a certain card with a certain number, they just have a certain budget and go out to find a card that suits it. If AMD's pricing were to be way off here, it would be a ripoff indeed. But by the same sort of rumours that regard the name shift, AMD's pricing seems perfectly reasonable.