As all you fellow PC gamers may already know by now, the RV670 better known as Radeon HD2950 is gonna be released in some weeks. But in a brilliant marketing move AMD has decided to drop completely their Pro, GT, XTX, etc. names, and go for a full numbering scheme.

That way, the Radeon HD2950 transforms into the Radeon HD3800! (applause)

GeCube's Radeon HD3800 page

And the coming RV670PRO and RV670XT will be released as the Radeon HD3850 and HD3870 respectively. Far less complicated isn't it? You think that now, but you WONT when we get the Radeong HD3441 and the HD3647.

Discuss. 

I dunno, I have a feeling some people are stupid enough to buy anything with the letters "HD" in front of it.

The higher end ones are pretty much the same price as the Nvidia 8800's right? And they get lower results, so 8800 it is...

dear god.. this sounds pathetic... Nvidia will top anything ATI has with the 9800GTX. The G9 series will be amazing. =] Quad-SLI FTW!!!

your link doesnt work for me btw.

I don't know about that. I'd rather wait and see what each one comes up with. It's the second generation of DX10 cards to come out, but Nvidia does have something like what, a 1-year head start on DX10?

This has given Nvidia 12 months to refine their designs while ATI is still playing catch-up, because at the end of the day the 2900s are still playing second fiddle - and are also loud.

Surprises do happen, though. Surely you remember the Geforce 5X00 series that were stupid loud - that was around the time the 9600 was trouncing the Geforce series, so until both companies play their cards I am holding off on my GPU purchase.

Nvidia does look like they will have a killer card coming out though, but I got the crossfire mainboard when the Intel chipset was considered superior to the Nvidia offering. Either ATI comes out with something that really challenges the 8800 series, or that mobo is going into my HTPC and it's off to the computer mall to get an SLI mobo. 

Just a refresher for anyone who isn't up to date.

NVidia is basically several months ahead of ATI right now. Its that simple. But the reason for this is that a while back AMD bought out ATI and reorganized the company a bit. Basically AMD wants to create a unified architecture that is still modularly upgradeable and so they buy out ATI to get their hands on some top-notch experienced design veterans.

Fastforward a bit and they are still hard at work on that project with an undisclosed release date and ATI's head to head with NVidia has deteriorated because they haven't had the time to keep up with things.

Nobody knows exactly how big of a leap this unified architecture would/could be, but just the benefits of bringing the major processing components onto one footprint would be huge in negating both propagation delays and bandwidth issues.

edit: Technically I might need a refresher from this point actually, its been a while since I heard anything new... 

NVidia is basically several months ahead of ATI right now

...and in the world of ever-evolving technology, that is a lifetime. Nvidia really did good with the 8800s - still ahead of the game even after a full generation of cards!

Nobody knows exactly how big of a leap this unified architecture would/could be, but just the benefits of bringing the major processing components onto one footprint would be huge in negating both propagation delays and bandwidth issues

This actually sounds very promising. At the end of the day, for me it's not about outright performance - I don't like loud parts that consume more power than a hairdryer just for the sake of a few extra fps, but I do appreciate a well-thought-out design that is up there in performance, is easy on the ears, and doesn't drain 5% of the energy output of the local power plant.

Performance for performance's sake is great when you want to show off, but I use my PCs on a daily basis and there is nothing more irritating than having a loud PC - or having to pay double the normal electricity bill just because you decided to gain 2 extra frames. 

GeCube seems to have noticed they published the page before time

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=5358

ATI is paying all the mistakes they've done since the R520, and that's not exactly a good thing for us customer. If ATI is not giving fight, who's gonna give incentive to nVidia to keep getting better/keeping competitive prices? Boy, I remember the days where you got a given card, and three version of it. Max you were gonna pay was $250. The days...

Have you fixed your crappy ATI linux drivers, AMD?

Not yet?

I'll take my business elsewhere then.

epsilon72 said: Have you fixed your crappy ATI linux drivers, AMD? Not yet? I'll take my business elsewhere then.

 Their open source-steps are a good sign.