After the success of its RV770 and refreshed DirectX 10.1 cards ATI wants to continue its winning streak with a DirectX 11 card.

We still don’t know the codename, but let's assume that the next generation performance / mainstream chip is codenamed RV870. This chip will likely have DirectX 11 support; at least this is what our sources believe at this time.

There is an important indication that RV870 might launch before DirectX 11 becomes available but this can only be a good thing for ATI, but if we were betting people we would suggest that such a chip should be available a year from now, in late Q2 or early Q3 2009.