Its actually strange, when it comes to shader power from real shaders including core speed. NV and AMD are almost exactly the same when it comes to speed in games when you include the clocks of these cards.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...ange-market/19

The 280 shader 6870 is clocked at 900 mhz and is 5% slower than a 850/1700mhz 336 shader gtx 460. To me this means NV needs to find a new way to get performance because although their shaders possess the same amount of GPU power more or less, NV way of utilizing them uses way more energy(as this card uses 50watts more of power) and they need to be able to raise clocks to compensate for AMD(1+4) shader design. To me, this means they have to get rid of all things related to the CGPU. AMD from the sounds of it, got rid of one of the last things that made its GPU a CGPU, they got rid of FP64 according to Anand to save size and energy. AMD part is strictly for gaming which is why I think it so efficient at using energy.

Nvidia needs to make two lines, which is a sad truth for them. They cannot catch up to AMD for performance per watt, if they keep on making these power consuming CGPU graphics cards. They need to do something that strictly does games.

The only glimmer of hope is from a transistor stand point, gf104 is actually pretty good because it is has 15% more transisters and if Nvidia made a made a 384 850mhz gf104, it might be 15-20 percent faster than a 6870. The problem though is with all that GPU compute part still in it, it makes getting such clocks hard and it also I can imagine would makes such a card would use just as much power as a gtx 470.

With fermi NV took a step backwards as cards like the gtx 275 and the 4890 were comparable for both power usage and speed in games. With the added functionality of fermi in regards to its computing abilities, it took a massive step back in regards to power consumption.

If Nvidia continues to keep the GPU compute parts in their cards it will be much more difficult to catch up to AMD on the frequency front and the power efficiency front.

NV needs to make a gaming line architecture and a CGPU architecture. The gaming line needs to have none of the GPU compute parts. NV needs to go back to the drawing board and remember what business it got into in the first place.