ATI's HD 49x0 at The Inquirer

It makes sense, as the DX11 release wasnt in tune with how both ATI and nVidia have been releasing in May-June, so a delayed 5xxx series makes perfect sense, especially for DX11, and having the HW for it, for testing.
As to the rest, who knows? So many other references about suped up 770s etc, with higher clocks etc, and 1 early 40nm part in the low mid end (740), all possibilities

Intriguing - I wonder if they'll use some of the now available GDDR5 at >4500MHz. I won't be upgrading until the 5xxx series at the soonest, but it will still be neat to see how these perform.

If they'll rush the 5xxx series for DX11 it's going to suck badly. Again we will see driver issues because they are so tense on times to release the boards at the same time as nvidia.
but I got myself a 4870 and I'm cool for the next couple of years, will probably buy 6xxx or 7xxx maybe even wait for DX12.

Excuse my french but isnt this bit

The most interesting part of the posts was the one about DAAMIT having refined the fabbing process resulting in better yields that would allow it to put out parts with lower redundancy, that is, less silicon set aside for the eventuality of a manufacturing defect. This would mean some serious cherry-picking taking place and a limited supply of cards, at best, not to mention the economics of the thing...

Complete Bollocks ?? Its arse about face isnt it. less redundancy means more correct chips per die so more profit per waffer. No ? You dont get as many LE or PRO chips but they were just a way of shifting the failed chips anyway.

What does this bit mean ??? " less silicon set aside for the eventuality of a manufacturing defect."

I really dont see how a better process with less failed chips can possably lead to a limited supply of cards ???

Help im very confused now      

Mactronix

I think he's saying that there is redundancy built into the chips (like an extra 40+ SPUs or something) and now that they are getting better at making them, they have a some (limited number) that can run with all 840 SPUs (rather than 800 with 40 disabled like now) and that are able to clock higher than current.

Ah the light dawns, If thats correct then they really do have there process nailed down. Thats really quite clever, the sort of thinking outside the box that companies need to get the upperhand on the competition. Could be they chose to do it this way as they intend these cards to be a stop gap between the 4 and 5 serie's cards. So are you saying that the RV770 was always made with 840 and 40 have always been redundant ? If thats the case then they could have a decent supply set aside already.

Mactronix

Thats a possibility, if you look at a die shot, or maybe they may just unlock the core/sp speeds, and use a multi?or both?

What they have to get away from is the marketing model where they need to have failed GPU's at lower price points, rather than well designed models for the lower price points. The same applies to CPU's (though I must say so with a bit of tongue in cheek as I have a failed "triple cripple" with one core disabled out of 4 -- quite a nice little CPU).

Lotro scales incredibly, I can get 100fps out of a 7600gt and still have a surprisingly "decent" looking game, or I can turn everything right up and have all the dx10 whistles and bells and make my 4870 cry at 2048x1536   at which point its far better looking than oblivion...

I think I'll be waiting for dx11, unless something awesome comes out between times (In the way of demanding games or super hardware).

reffering to older threads that you (yipsl) may not remember:- I ended up buying the 4870's over the gtx280 due to the unexpected price \ performance gap between nvidia and ATI at launch. The 4870 represented a nice little step up in performance at a very reasonable price the nvidia represented a slightly better step up in performance at a huge price... I wasnt expecting both a small performance gap and a huge price gap. I dont think nvidia were either  

Now that I have compared the 8800gtx and the 4870 side by side for movie play back and games graphics I really dont think there is anything to pick between the two image qualitywise except for different default colour settings... But I AM glad that Ive had the chance to see for myself, the 4870 was a bargain. My old 8800GTX's are now seeing a well earned retirement in the kids rigs...

If the assumptions above are correct that is exactly what they have done. Its not like they ever needed failed chips its more of a case of thats what they came up with to shift them. Im not saying the very first production run ended with a bin full of chips and the guys were standing around scratching their heads wondering who was going to tell the boss, and what the hell are we gonna do with this lot, although....   They have always designed differant lower end chips for the mid and low end market its just how things worked out i guess. The yeilds on the 4 series were stageringly good from the word go and now it seems we may know why. A case in point would also be the i7 CPU's. Im not sure if this is correct but a reviewer said that the cores are monolithic i think was what he said and that if a single part or core failed then the whole chip was wasted, so no 3 core variants. Either thats wrong or Intel are very confident in the process.

Mactronix