For anyone shopping now, what difference does it make when the part was released? There is a time when enthusiast interest stops and consumer interest starts. For me, when I'm buying something- when it came out is of very little concern unless it is a car. If I walk into a store today and buy both a 5970 and/or a 470SLI solution, do you think it matters one bit when either part was released? Sure, if I was buying six months ago that would have obviously been a factor, but as a consumer buying today it has to be one of the most moronic arguments you could possibly make in terms of the strengths/weaknesses of a part. Intel could come out with i8 processors six months ahead of schedule, that would mean absolutely nothing if they lost to AMD in the metric most important to a consumer at the time they make their purchase nor should it.
It's a perfectly valid argument. I bought my two 5870s in September, cost me $900. I've been using them for the past six months. I'm an enthusiast and I buy high end parts close to their release date.
I've gotten six months out of these cards, if I'd been suckered into waiting for nvidia, I would of gone without these cards for six months and paid $780 for 470 SLI and less performance or $1100 for 480 SLI and 15% more performance. Sounds like a raw deal to me. I also have about a six month wait from today for ATI's new cards which will almost certainly be faster than anything nvidia has out and will end up providing me with a full year of use out of my 5870s, offering what basically amounted to the best performance available for that year for my $900.
The 470 is closer to the 5870 in performance then the 5850, and the 470 is cheaper then the 5870. In my reality, that would be competition. As far as heat concerns, he's talking about a 5970, not a 5750. It isn't like that is a particularly cool running card either.
I'm not going to argue where these solutions land performance wise with you, it's 'moronic' not to look at a wide spectrum of reviews and see that 5870 CF is faster than 470 SLI and 5850 beats a 470 about as many times as a 470 beats a 5850, putting them on par, it's much the same situation as GTX 260 vs 4870 was.
Of course it can be preferable to keep parroting one review site's results again and again because they differ from the majority.
By your own argument, the 5870 is competition to the 480 the same way you say the 470 is to the 5870, of course the 5870 is $100 cheaper than a 480, vs a $50 savings on the 470 to the 5870. And the 5850 is $50 cheaper than the 470 and is its equal when averaging out benchmarks.
The GTX 470/480 are totally underwhelming cards due to their release point, the 470 offering nothing more performance wise as a single card, the 480 offering very little more performance wise as a single card and that we can expect a big performance jump from ATI cards close to the end of the year.
I like to upgrade my rig, but I don't get free hardware. I don't mind spending $1000 to get close to double the performance I got over my 285 SLI setup. But I'm not now going to spend another $1000 six months later for 15% more, when I can wait another 6 months and spend $1000 for close to double the performance again when the 6XXX series comes out.
Nvidia needs to catch up, right now they're six months behind.