There really aren't that many apps that are setup bound. You can see that from from any straight geometry tests the dual geometry engnes in termsof setup are working fine. There are more improvementsto come from the drivers with regards to the tessellation changes though.
Okay, I meant "geometry bound.
Resolution scaling when the CPU isn't an issue tells you a lot about how geometry bound you are. In Dirt2, compare the HD 6000 series:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/21
to the GeForces:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-570-review/14
Using a regression with pixel count, at 1920x1200 - the resolution that Guru3D chose for it's full comparison - the 6970 is spending 62% of its time on resolution-independent workload, while the GTX 570 is only spending 47% of its time there.
Per extra pixel, the 6970 is 15% faster than the GTX 580. Yet the latter is still 11% faster even at the highest resolution (2560x1600, 8xAA, 16xAF) because the 6970 spends 60% more time on the resolution-independent stuff.
You can also see that the 6870 doesn't scale any differently from the 6970, and this shows in the similar res-ind time of ~8ms per frame. Cayman's doubled geometry throughput isn't working very well in this game and others.
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The regression model is not perfect due to quad/tile count scaling a bit differently from pixel count, but the results are decent. CPU doesn't seem to be a factor as multi-GPU setups get 150+ fps.
Code:
Measured FPS:
12x10 16x12 19x12 25x16
6870 87 76 70 52
6970 94 83 77 61
570 106 90 80 58
580 123 104 96 68
Regression results:
6870 6970 570 580
ns per pixel 2.78 2.04 2.80 2.36
ms per frame 7.8 8.1 5.8 5.0
Fitted FPS (1 / (ms_per_frame + ns_per_pixel * 10e-9 * screen_pixel_count)):
12x10 16x12 19x12 25x16
6870 87.0 75.8 70.2 52.0
6970 92.8 83.2 78.1 60.7
570 105.3 89.2 81.4 57.8
580 123.0 104.5 95.5 68.0
ATI's shader architecture is as efficient as ever at shading pixels from cars, the environment, and post-processing. Unfortunately, it's much slower at resolution-independent stuff, like drawing reflection/shadow maps and cranking out triangles for the main scene, which points to far slower geometry processing.