When AMD launched the HD5000 series, also known by their collective codename Evergreen, they were proudly directing attention to the improved anisotropic filtering, more specifically two things:
Texture attribute interpolation was moved from the TMUs into the shader core and the angle dependency had almost vanished. The approriate screenshot from a little application known as AF-Tester was shown and repeated through most of the reviews in the internet world. Even though AMDs offerings of late exhibit a more pronounced tendency towards shimmering in fine grainded texture detail, some reviews and reputable magazines declared them ruling kings of image quality - something the fanboys from the red camp really liked and re-trumpeted around the forae of the internet.
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