ATI understanding specs?

[anything I don't mind]

Ok wait i think i see how it works now. The higher numbers in each range are the higher speced version. As a 5830 and up is better than the 3850 etc. never mind.

 

[Sasahara]

The Radeon HD 3850 was the 2nd fastest single GPU of the series and probably cost £200+ on release.

The Radeon HD 6570 is the 3rd slowest card of the series and costs under £50. Your not really comparing like with like.

The improvement in this example is slightly better performance for 25% of the cost, with half the power consumption.

 

[anything I don't mind]

It seems though that only after 3850 era did ATI start releasing cards of a lower spec than previous ranges. In the past when you wanted to upgrade a graphics you, as long as you bought a newer range you could be assured that it was a better spec. These days, most of the cards that come out are not as good as the middle of the previous spec. It seems they are lacking massive leaps in terms of spec these days or they don't sell the cards with enough difference between them.

Look at the 5830 you have to go all the way up to top of the next range before you can meet the same sort of spec. Makes me wonder what the point of the bottom half of the next range is for ?

 

[i5aces]

This is something I was wandering to. But didn't have the bottle to ask.
I assumed the first number was the series / gen then the higher number after that meant faster card.

 

[Gregster]

This is something I was wandering to. But didn't have the bottle to ask.
I assumed the first number was the series / gen then the higher number after that meant faster card.

This is spot on. ^^

A new gen does not always mean a faster card.

IE. A GTX550TI is slower than a GTX480

A 6990 is faster than a 7970.

 

[anything I don't mind]

Why do they even bother on making cards that are worse than cards from 4-5 years ago? I would have expected by now the worst cards would be up to the level of spec of my current card. But it seems that is not the case. While the cutting edge cards continue to improve at a consistent rate. The bottom cards have decreased in the rate of improvement.

For example if you go back to when the 3850 came out. By the time the 3850 came out cards from 4 or 5 years previous to the release of the 3850 were not available for purchase, in terms of specification level. But it is not ocuk fault, ocuk even go as far as selling more top of the range cards. I am specifically talking about the way ATI have produced them and released them. It might probably be the same with nvidia as well but i have not looked in to those specs.