Quote Originally Posted by SKYMTL View Post
One thing to remember is that NVIDIA did their "big move" towards a true ground up DX11 architecture with Fermi and paid the price. If AMD does the same thing, then they will pay the same price and learn the same (very hard) lessons.

AMD has essentially been using the same basic architecture since the DX10 days and has gradually added modules for DX11 compatibility. So, the move to a ground up DX11 architecture may be a tough one.
One more way AMD is going to also pay a monster price is driver performance. If GCN is much more different, much of the driver optimizations for their old architecture will not come about. Considering how long it took for the 3870 to get performance up to snuff with the 8800gt, it might be a year before we see good driver performance from AMD.

A 40 percent jump or say 25 percent faster than a gtx 580 wouldn't be that bad, with immature drivers it could go to 40% in half a year. Expecting 80-100 percent is too much considering the driver team from AMD and the new architecture. No one gets it right the first time anymore and I think AMD is taking risks, expect to see some eratic performance jumps.