Quote Originally Posted by Manicdan View Post
the 5970 is 2x5870s but with 5850 clocks. which should put it around 180W each, but managed to keep it under 300W

it shouldnt be that hard to do something similar where they build it downclocked, and leave plenty of room to OC it, if you can handle the noise.
As long as performance / watt doesn't increase (which it hasn't in Barts) you can't get more performance at 300 watts. The only thing that would be increasing performance would be CF scalability, which did increase about 10% in Barts CF situations.

BTW a single 5850 is 150W whereas a 5870 is 180W. Two 5870's in 5850 clocks and voltage would be around 160W; which would make 320W, but because one PCB's worth of energy is saved it's 300W.

There is no way AMD is putting two Cayman's in the Antilles unless:

1. Performance/watt has increased incredibly, so incredibly that a 6950 consumes the same power as a 6870 while performing about 25% better.

OR,

2. They won't be caring about the 300W limit.