Only way I see this card having revelancy to such a name is... if it's 4K-proof to AT LEAST a handful of modern titles... since I hate multi-monitor gaming setups with a passsion and even the puny-ish 2560x1440/1600 are no way near as common as they should be... Nor is the hardware or programing skill of most game studios up to snuff.
I'm with you on all that, but be realistic.
It's conceivable at the very edge this gen, but the big push will be on 20nm both because of the timing of the displays reaching a more tangible market as well as process abilities of tsmc (not to mention the potential need for more bw and/or more dense buffers without building monstrosities that will likely come between now and then).
Figure 4k is 4x 1080p.
I figure 20nm will bring similar designs to gk110/8900 aimed at the sweet-spot market with their shiny new 4k displays in late 2014 to 2015. That is to say efficient and 48 ROPs...obviously on more realistic size/yielding silicon and in consumer-friendly power envelopes. If that were roughly 2688 units (12 nvidia smx = 2688 w sfu, amd 42 cu = 2688) at ~1300mhz, it would be ~4x something like a 7850 (1024 x 860mhz), the baseline to play most titles at 1080p, and likely not changing much given the new rumored console specs.
Considering the process shrink should bring roughly 2x density, ~20-30% clock hikes at similar voltage, and gddr6 (and/or 4Gb GRAM) if not some other tech may rear it's head by that time, it seems a realistic trajectory. See clock/power skew of 28nm in previous post but note TSMC will lower the voltage aim on 20nm...1.264v ain't gonna be refuse anymore certainly to AMD's disappointment. The process will likely wimper out around where most designs hover because of efficiency, 1.15-1.175v (blame a united process with an eye focused on mobile SoCs, ). That means potentially ~1400-1500mhz, minus ~10% for stock skus...or around 1300mhz give or take.
Speculative maths, to be sure. But realistic.
