Quote Originally Posted by Manicdan View Post
the launch date of the 460 is much closer to the 6800s than the 5800s, which do you think its really competing with?

i see your edit:


there are ONLY 2 things which really let you get double the perf with every new release. architecture and process.

the 4870 to 5870 was 2 fold increase because it got 50% smaller from process changes, 0% from architecture, and is much bigger.
was the 9800 twice as fast as the 8800? how about 3870 vs 2900,

you just need to stop worring about the simple naming convention and be happy with the price to perf changes that gradually change across time. what was the biggest jump you ever saw?
I guess someone forgot the R580, which was on the same process as the R520 but had 3x the shader power... No die shrink needed, it just came out the gates swinging.

Biggest jump in recent memory, i think we'll ALL agree on, was the 8800GTX hands down. Ironically enough, that was the last time I bought a high-end card too... go figure. The following year, we had a $200 card(the 8800GT) that was pretty close to it performance wise, and they were both from the same series.

The 2900 to 3870 most of us all knew was a sham. AMD wanted to, as quickly as possible, get away from the HD 29xx name because everyone related it to bad performance. NVidia then had to follow suit with the 98xx because because people will automatically think "oh look, new series of cards, it has to be better than the last series". I will tell you this much, I didn't buy anything from either series that "generation"(which, lets be real here, was NOT a new generation), but it WAS a situation that was initially forced by AMD.

The key issue with the name is, they're actually trying to swindle customers(much like NVidia did with renaming the G92 or going further back ATi did with the x600 that was really a 9 series card) by changing up the name scheme. I mean, it's not like it's a bad card per-say, but in comparison to the cards that THEY named them to be the successor(going by their OWN names, quit telling me about cayman, tell AMD that), there's no excuse for performance lower than that point. If it's such a smaller die in comparison, they should've used some of that die space to incorporate enough shaders TO over-come last gen.

It's like we're always reminded... We are the minority, the well informed hard-ware buyer. If you knew how many people buy on name alone you'd probably laugh yourself to tears, then cry yourself to sleep from laughing so hard. As such, I do see things like this as a big deal(much like I didn't like the renaming of the G92, but at least it's performance never got WORSE) because it's mis-leading to the population... Do you have any idea how many people there are who constantly buy the next generation cards without knowing anything about them?

They're going to see that the 6870 is out, know they have a 5870 in their computer because that's what their buddy told them when he built it from them, and think this card is an upgrade... Man will he be in for a surprise, no?

Of course, I'm sure someone will come up with a good excuse for that situation too, no?