Don't quote lump me with that other guy. I have valid reasons to say what I am saying. The card runs slower than 2x 5870s, and the price listed in the topic of this thread is atrocious for the perf.
This card is close to 13" long by the way.
slower? comparatively? and by how much? were these preliminary benches done with "beta" drivers? what game or benchmark was used for testing?
I assume so, considering full driver support for these cards hasn't even been hinted at by ATI, yet - the cards aren't to market, either . . . whereas the 5870s are on the shelf, there's official drivers for them available . . .
If you ask me, I don't see how one could state the above reason as being "valid" as the card's
performance has yet to be *officially* verified.
What I want to see is some real I MEAN real cooling coming from ATI . There cards rock ! But when they over heat ( Like they always have done to me ) they tend to take a huge hit in performance .
Now, I'll admit that ATI's earlier cards have run quite warm in the past . . . even compared to nVidia's most of the time . . . hell, the HD3870s were notorious for running right around 100C . . .
But, from my experience with two HD4870s, and two 4870x2s, they've run cool. I've yet to see any of these cards break 80C under full load . . . even idle stays right around 55C. They're some of the coolest running ATI cards I've ever owned . . .
And considering the new R800 GPUs are based off the RV700s . . . I'd expect the same level of thermal operation . . .
MSRP don't really matter to me, it's end cost out of my wallet. I bought my card in late October and they were released in Mid August, so it was a full 2 months after release and it was still over $500, and that was from ZZP, at that time I bought from there because even Newegg prices were higher than that.
Either way, to expect a dual GPU card with 2 of the best GPU's on the market to come in under $500, it just isnt going to happen. The 5870 is $360 and the 5850 is $260, this lies between those in performance, so we'll say $300 if this was a single GPU variant. That would mean retail should be around $600 - $650. And if a full clocked 5970 lands I would expect that to be $700 - $750.
I just assume when they said cards under $500, that they meant single GPU cards, to have top end come in dual GPU and be under $500 off the bat is impossible, they arent going to take a loss like that.
I can see that point . . . all I'm trying to state is that we can't blame ATI if the cards are being sold over $500.
I'd bet damn good money that we'll see the same price tiering as when the 4870x2 was released. The x2s will enter at $499, and the rest of the series will be bumped down at least $30-$90 (depending on the model).
The way I figure, ATI know $500 is right about the most that the average general enthusiast is willing to spend on a GPU (meaning someone that wants upper-end but might not be fully up-and-up on the tech scene) . . . pricing in that bracket is golden for them, and they've proven this with the last two series (both the HD4000s and the HD3000s). nVidia love the $500+ bracket, and even when their upper-end cards are only ~15% faster, the average joe isn't going to be willing to dump another $150-$300 with a semi-marginal increase in performance (note: for all out there, I say semi-marginal as the performance gain varies between both cards and games . . . we all know that some games favor one hardware type over another). Along with the $500 arena, you get those that if they're looking at nVidia's upper-end GPUs - if you're going to spend $700+ for a card, you could throw in another $200-$300 and have two dual-GPU cards that can easily handle anything you throw at them . . .
The pricing game is a big deal when it comes to video hardware sales . . . and, sadly, the first to market with each new series gets to "name the game" so-to-speak.
