Quote Originally Posted by tajoh111 View Post
I think AMD didn't expect the gtx 580 so soon. None of us did, look at the initial gtx 580 rumors and we all thought it was a joke and FUAD was just trying to get attention. I think this card was meant to go against the gtx 480. Performance was a chief concern but AMD also knew it didn't need sky high performance and would just need to beat the gtx 480 in heat and power consumption, while taking it in performance to some extent. The gtx 480 was a disaster when its cons were taken into account. Basically AMD just needed to make a decent card to make an excellent card when compared to the flawed gtx 480. I think this was a far more realistic interpretation of what was to come.

Some people were expecting an 80% performance jump on the same node when the prior generation of chips were already 333mm. That's completely unrealistic(unless AMD wanted to double the size of their chip). I know the card isn't released but leaks and specs are indicated something far less than what a lot of people anticipated.
Well FUD (not sure anyone should trust him anyways with AMD stuff) said the chip was the biggest AMD ever done - and R600 was 420mm^2

Turns out its 389mm^2, which is proof that Fud either doesn't have a source and makes $h!t up, is an idiot, or a combination of both (most likely) - and so expectations need to change.

A 430mm^2 1920SP Cayman probably takes teh crown easily - a 390mm^2 1536SP Cayman probably won't.

The 580's release was definitely earlier than people thought, although the 580 seems to be in short supply in a lot of countries, so maybe it was indeed rushed out earlier by Nvidia to steal the thunder regardless of stock, esp. since the 6900's apparently are in good supply and were stockpiled for some time