Don't be absurd papa....the 8xxx series will be here before you know it!....Gee i hope the 7xxx series drop in prices then.
To some extent that is true, however if you clock (in your example) the 5850 up to the 5870(particularly the memory) they will compliment each other nicely. When I was building in 08 quite a bit with 4830's and 4850's, I has some customers who purchased some low mileage 4830's % 4850's to crossfire in an effort to save a few bucks. I clocked up the 4830's to 4850 specs and they scaled very nicely in crossfire. I was looking at it as a marketing thing more than anything else though Princeton. with the advent of Lucid Hydra...which performs miserably thus far, I am guessing it would boost sales if that were an option, just a theory.
Don't bank on it. The 6000 series dies are rumoured to be around 10% larger, that and higher clocks and shader usage will ensure that there is a power usage bump over the 5000 series.
No.
