Are you waiting for prices/fermi, not buying, or something else?

[exar333]

Unless if I can sell my current card, so I can pay less than $250 of difference for a new HD 5870, I will keep my card, with my standard resolution, I can even run Crysis maxed with 4x FSAA and never dips below 27fps which feels very playable compared to other games running at the same FPS which are none. Even my brother's in law HD 3870 is enough for him, he can play Need for Speed Shift maxxed at the same resolution as mine (1280x0124) plus 4x FSAA, also uses the same settings for Resident Evil 5.

Consoles are driving development, hence not much need in better performance yet.

I just sold my GTX 285 for $50 less than I bought my 5870 for. Its amazing what some people will pay for an older (but still very good) card.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Well I like the 32nm i5s So is what has my interest is the M/B for the 32nm i5s

Highend with a Hydra chip onboard . If it works as advertized with any IGP than that would be perfect for FUn and gaming . You should beable to use intels ondie Igp with NV or ATI discret graphics and end up with a very powerful gamer for cheap.

Just have to see how this plays out.

 

[ScorcherDarkly]

I am thinking it is probably a 5970 X4, now that would grab my attention

There's no way. For the 5970, an X2 card, they had to underclock each chip so it would fit inside a 300W power envelope in order to meet the ATX specification. This is why 5870 CF will beat a single 5970 in benchmarks. The parts are the same, but the operating specs are not, at least at stock speeds. The amount they'd have to down clock on an X4 card would just be stupid, maybe impossible. Not to mention how friggin huge a X4 card would be. It wouldn't fit in anyone's box, lol.

If there's some big announcement, my guess is it'll be the super-duper EyeFinity cards that let you hook up 6 monitors on one board.

 

[Mauers]

already bought a 5850 about a month ago. plenty fast for 24" monitor.

 

[nemesismk2]

already bought a 5850 about a month ago. plenty fast for 24" monitor.

Sounds nice, wish I had a 5850. Maybe Santa will bring me one

 

[Idontcare]

There's no way. For the 5970, an X2 card, they had to underclock each chip so it would fit inside a 300W power envelope in order to meet the ATX specification. This is why 5870 CF will beat a single 5970 in benchmarks. The parts are the same, but the operating specs are not, at least at stock speeds. The amount they'd have to down clock on an X4 card would just be stupid, maybe impossible. Not to mention how friggin huge a X4 card would be. It wouldn't fit in anyone's box, lol.

If there's some big announcement, my guess is it'll be the super-duper EyeFinity cards that let you hook up 6 monitors on one board.

IMO the 300W limit is a game-changer at this juncture.

With both AMD and Nvidia releasing competing products based on the same process technology node (40nm) and same manufacturer (TSMC) and both products running into the same (somewhat arbitrary and artificial) spec ceiling for power-consumption in their X2 config SKU's the battle is going to be all about the raw architectural power-consumption efficiency per work unit (fps).

Whichever microarchitecture has the best performance/watt is going to have the best performance because they both have the same watt budget.

Just like the AMT (alternative minimum tax) here in the USA, this artificial ceiling will probably come to impact the middle-class of GPU's (high-end single-GPU SKU's) at 32/28nm when they once again double-up the transistor counts on the GPU's for that generation if there isn't a revision to the spec in the meantime.

 

[Tab]

For those waiting for "Fermi" or Nvidia's next gen, do you have any idea how expensive this card will initially be?

 

[n7]

Not waiting for anything really, other than better prices perhaps.

I'm just fine w/ my HD 4890 till i can get an HD 58xx on the cheap, or comparable nV Fermian varient.