A year on from the release of the Cypress based
HD5870 and HD5850, AMD are looking at refreshing their line-up of cards with
some new offerings. Any graphics card release is met by a certain level of hype
and following the huge success of the HD5XXX series, consumers have every right
to expect more great things from AMD. However, in a confusing turn of events,
today's release is aimed at targeting the mid-range market as opposed to the
traditional method of releasing the high end cards first to create a halo
effect. More confusing is AMD's bold choice of renaming their new series of
cards to reflect an entirely refreshed product range, as opposed to intuitively
carrying the moniker we've been accustomed to seeing since the HD3870 launched
a few years back. Typically, the X870 naming convention has been reserved for
ATI's high end offerings, but under the new AMD logo rebrand, they have decided
that the moniker will now symbolise their mid-range segment. The confusion
arises in the fact that consumers accustomed to the old naming scheme will
confuse this new card as the replacement to the Cypress based HD5870, when in
fact it will replace the Juniper based HD5770. @ Vortez
