The 6000 series is what the 400 series to Nvidia was, and the 7000 is what the 6000 should have been, like the 500 series from Nvidia was to the 400.
It does seem that way doesn't it? nVidia have a slight advantage at the moment in many ways as they can still sell their old 400 series cards as bargain and the fact that they are a little hot and noisy is less of an issue when you're getting that level of performance cheaper. A friend of mine picked up a 480 for £170 recently. Ok, it was refurbed, but it had a years ticket on it and that's a lot of performance for the price. He did put it under water too in the end so heat and noise are not issues. Even on air though it really wasn't that bad at all, I guess the non-reference cooler took care of that.
AMD however have seen their newer products
become the hot and noisy option, not a good impression to make with a new product line when the outgoing 5000 series had it pretty much bang on...also their product naming confuses me - picked up a few tricks from NV there methinks lol.
So yes, 7000 series will hopefully be what AMD intended all along with the 6000 series. NV already moved the game on by finally getting Fermi right, so there's pressure there, as well as the relative unknown that is NV's 600 series.
Just a thought but does anyone else think that, after a couple of stumbles by both parties, that they might be inclined to play things a little safer with their initial 600/7000 series releases? After all the switch to a new process is a big deal, though I'd be inclined to say "advantage AMD" here as they already did a lot of development for a die shrink that didn't happen as hoped for their 6000 series...
In isolation, really, the products from BOTH parties do offer some stunning performance at the moment, even if AMD are perceived to be running a
little hotter and noisier generally at the moment after NV got the 500 series bang on after their false start with the 400's.
Cheers,
Scoob.