Just do what every sensical person would do and take each new generation of graphics cards as exactly that, a new generation. Make an educated decision based on what the product is, not the name...
I think there was some desire to get some differentiation between the 6850 and 6870 this time out.
Look at the 4850 vs. the 4870. Both reasonably high end when they released, but obviously different, the 4850 leveraged DDR 3, core was clocked a fair bit lower, only required a single six pin power connector, cost about $100 less, the 4870 used DDR5, a few more stream processors, core clocked significantly better. In graphics, more often than not the high end part is where the most margin is, so in a perfect world, thats what more people will buy, so, you kind of have to have some separation from that next product down in the chain, unless they are all priced so close that it is nearly pointless to have two models anyhow.
Now look at the 5850 / 5870 when they first came out. If memory serves the 5850 was $259 and the 5870 was $379. When you compare the two, they are fairly close performance wise, honestly, so much so that its fairly hard to command that 30+% price premium for the 5870. The 5850 was the talk of the town, high end gaming for less. Some guys who had massive power supplies and 790fx boards just figured, I'll get two 5850's and crossfire them, beat the pants off a single 5870, probably costing AMD precious margin.
Eventually AMD got wise, noticed the small performance/high price gap, (that they corrected by raising the price of the 5850 to about $319 for a while). Just for illustration say they sold ten thousand before they adjusted price, well you just left 600K laying on the table. Now, we all know Thrax is an expensive guy, but I'm sure that would pay his salary for at least a few years, so, someone in marketing decides, lets go back to the 4850 / 4870 model where we were not bastardizing the margin of our high end product.
I just bought another 5770 to Crossfire, but I'm sure I could find a happy home for a 6850 in my "work" rig (which would likely spend much more time playing Civ5 in Eyefinity than doing work from there on out).
Comments
I think there was some desire to get some differentiation between the 6850 and 6870 this time out.
Look at the 4850 vs. the 4870. Both reasonably high end when they released, but obviously different, the 4850 leveraged DDR 3, core was clocked a fair bit lower, only required a single six pin power connector, cost about $100 less, the 4870 used DDR5, a few more stream processors, core clocked significantly better. In graphics, more often than not the high end part is where the most margin is, so in a perfect world, thats what more people will buy, so, you kind of have to have some separation from that next product down in the chain, unless they are all priced so close that it is nearly pointless to have two models anyhow.
Now look at the 5850 / 5870 when they first came out. If memory serves the 5850 was $259 and the 5870 was $379. When you compare the two, they are fairly close performance wise, honestly, so much so that its fairly hard to command that 30+% price premium for the 5870. The 5850 was the talk of the town, high end gaming for less. Some guys who had massive power supplies and 790fx boards just figured, I'll get two 5850's and crossfire them, beat the pants off a single 5870, probably costing AMD precious margin.
Eventually AMD got wise, noticed the small performance/high price gap, (that they corrected by raising the price of the 5850 to about $319 for a while). Just for illustration say they sold ten thousand before they adjusted price, well you just left 600K laying on the table. Now, we all know Thrax is an expensive guy, but I'm sure that would pay his salary for at least a few years, so, someone in marketing decides, lets go back to the 4850 / 4870 model where we were not bastardizing the margin of our high end product.
Just conjecture....
Thanks for the chance at the card Icrontic!!
If you were hosting a contest on your show would you want people to do this? Don't be a dick.
Fixed it for you.
Wilson Acosta
Satya Gandham
Tamuka Daniel Rwizi
Peter Gill
Nicholas Dubble
Chris Hoppman
Darren Fong
James Ingalls
Just kidding. I still think the freak out is hilarious.
Congrats folks!
Okay, maybe not so unexplained.
Lemmie guess - Brats?
Eggroll and I debated over that one for a good 15 minutes before I realized that I work for AMD and that I'm an idiot for not realizing it's BARTS.