And now... fighting out of the red corner, weighing in with two
Evergreen GPUs, and wearing black trunks and red trim, it's the Radeon HD 5970. ATI's latest challenger for the title of undisputed graphics champion has been snared in the wild, and its photo shoot reveals a suitably oversized beast. Measuring in at 13.5 inches and requiring both an eight- and six-pin power connector, the pre-production sample can fit inside only the roomiest and best-powered rigs around. It's named somewhat confusingly, with AMD dropping its X2 nomenclature for dual GPU setups, but it features two
HD 5870 chips running in onboard Crossfire on the same PCB, and foreshadows a HD 5950, which will combine a pair of the more affordable
HD 5850s. Performance figures available earlier have been pulled, at the behest of AMD, but we've got plenty of eye candy to admire, and there's also no price tag in sight to spoil our daydreaming pleasure.
[Via
PC Perspective]
posted Oct 31st 2009 9:10PM
cool
Great... If they weren't fat enough, now they're just getting longer. Lame.
yes very cool indeed
but only if Amd could make their Cpu's this nice I would have a reason not to buy Intel for my rigs and laptops
I WANT RAW POWER AMD
thanks for the illuminating comment.
Almost as intelligent as "first".
What?!?! No one made a 13.5 inch "that's what she said" joke? Wow, what's up with this new level of maturity?
now we just have to wait for the fermi....
@JehxOne:
Phenom II X4 series are great CPU's. The top Core i7's are just too beast though.
This sucker can play Crysis!
I want to play Crysis on SIX screens!
first crysis-related comment i've upranked in years.
At 2560x1600, with all the details up too, finally.
I have serious beef with Crysis: console developers are limited to what the consoles have inside, and therefore it's all the more impressive when they push the consoles to their limits (see Uncharted(s)). Crysis is all about saying, "Fuck limits" and just raising all the graphics up to 11 which is ambitious but an ultimately flawed developing model, seeing as how very few computers could play it at the time.
FURTHERMORE, I don't know how the game-component-importance pie chart works for the average consumer, but for me, graphics don't mean jack-shit if the story is also jack-shit. IMO, we as a gaming community need to focus on story more than graphics.
Actually,quite a lot of computers could play crysis at the time.. not just at glorified maximum setting.
@CH3BURASHKA-- Well if you don't see the business significance of creating an engine that can not run on current generation hardware at maximum settings....you clearly have no business sense at all. Most companies out there create an engine that came run games and current hardware settings at close to maximum settings...then these engines are pretty much tapped out. They have to go back when new hardware comes out and pretty much try to push the envelope again. The CryTek engine pretty much took the envelope and launched it to a new timezone. The fact that we are JUST NOW getting hardware that can play it on maximum settings means that plenty of games can be made on it and still have stunning graphics...and not only that...those games will age well.
The developers don't really give a crap about what the consumers have at the time..it's up to the game makers to deal with that. The folks who made Crysis were more interested in a future-resistant game engine...which they've clearly accomplished.
@neomatrix724:
I think you misunderstood me, or I didn't elaborate enough: I appreciate the existence of the engine. Like a console, it's made to be maxed out over a number of years, instead of on its first game/project. What I'm against is the Crysis aspect: once you think about it, Crysis is barely a game; it's more of a CryEngine demo with a FPS interface. As I said in the end, for the guy with a 8000 dollar rig, he'll be pumped, but since the majority of consumers aren't buying such computers, they won't get to see the graphical improvement. My ideal plan (in this case) would be to have a scaled-down Crysis with a bigger emphasis on story at time of release, and a Crysis 2 or 3 with maxed-out graphics, and since it's an evolution of graphics, there's a greater concentration of story-telling than there would be if they instead focused on just the 'pretty colors'. As the poster we are actually commenting to said, this new card can run Crysis at a fairly reasonable price (I'm assuming he's correct, I haven't checked myself). This is an indication that now would've been the best time to pimp a Crysis game for the bigger base of consumers.
@ CH3BURASHKA,
You obviously haven't spent much time with either of the games. Also play a few rounds of wars atleast and tell me this is "just graphics".
Also I think the 5970 naming is sligtly odd, I think the X2 monica was one that made product their placement clearer.
I agree with CH3BURASHKA...
Sick and tired of games being released with graphics options that you just can't turn up to the max and play at a decent framerate even with the latest technology at the time of a game's release.
Look at Half-Life (the first one)... top of the fps charts for years because they spent more time being creative (with other things like the storyline) instead of filling it with tons of eye-candy that only computers of future generations can enjoy.
You know, you can just move those sliders down if your computer can't handle the load. That's what enables that Engine to keep on living - they allow you to run the games on lower end computers, but have the upper graphics range to keep the current gen gaming rigs interested.
From a business stand point, developing one engine that will last for 8 years is a serious benefit. How often has a game been delayed because they keep reworking that new engine?
there has always been a game like crysis
we had
CS - back in the days of Voodoo 3
Quake 3
Doom 3
even Supreme Commander
were all games that were REALLY hard to run when they were released.
@brotha Umm, no. Except for Supreme Commander all the id engine based games ran great on existing hardware when they came out. Heck even if it ran like crap I even remember playing Quake 3 alpha unaccelerated, and it ran smoothly even on Voodoo2's. Same thing for CS, and I had pretty old hardware when Doom3 came out and it still ran fine. id is known for optimizing their game engines while simultaneously also pushing the envelope of graphics.
So while Voodoo2's may make every game look like total crap the fact that id optimizes their engines so well is why you can do this:
http://digg.com/gaming_news/Doom_3_Voodoo_2_screenshots
lol
I expected my HD4890 at 1080p to be able to kick the hell out of this game and as it turns out...no.
still a sexy beast :3
mmmmm.. giggady
It looks longer than my arm
it's longer then my third leg ;/
That's what he said?
That's what "she" said.
Plz good sir, don't bricked me with that card.
Random rant: One of my pet peeves is whenever ppl say 'thats what he/she said' in response to something that is already a direct reference to something dirty or sexual. The comment 'longer than my third leg' already clearly talks about a penis, so the following 'thats what he said' is not clever, adds absolutely nothing to the comment, and is not funny in any way. The exception to this if this "Howard" said this line in a poorly executed oh-look-at-me-be-overly-obvious-and-kill-a -joke sort of way, in which case I apologize good sir, though it seems doubtful.
I also apologize if somehow Risk actually has an actual third leg he was referencing instead of his penis and I was the only one not aware of this.
ha I think I just owned myself...feels good
Damn, look at that bad boy!
There goes the power bill...
Yes, I here alien abduction is at it's highest rate this time of year.
Downranked because here is not a verb- hear is.
Can't afford the power for this on Maui. I do like the newer 5700 series though for the fact that they are more energy efficient.
As if there wasn't enough energy being drawn already, I like how he added a fan next to the heat sink, professionally secured with zip ties of course.
love ati, the only unfortunate thing is that nvidia will be coming out with fermi (which might even trump this beast) q4 (or q1 '10). Still, gotta love the red team's outlook right now, looks like they'll be the value segment leader in the same way amd is for processors. now if only i could afford this puppy.
I'd be a lot more believing that Fermi will trump this if Nvidia were expressing any confidence in its ability to do so. Instead, they're hiding behind "it's not meant as a GPU".
Funny how some people like to pull benchmarks out of their ass.
Don't worry, I don't think your a huge nVidia fanboy covering your tracks by saying you love ATI.
im running two HD 4870s in Crossfire with a Phenom II 940 and a 790FX chipset and the thing plays Team Fortress 2 at 300fps 1920x1200. i really can't even comprehend what the HD 5000 series can do.
btw if you have dual HD 5000 cards can you run dual Eyefinity setups? as in 12 monitors? im guessing not but how stupidly awesome would that be.
Fermi isn't going to be THAT big a jump in terms of gaming performance.
Sure, it'll be faster, but not by a huge amount as hype would want you to believe. Most sites are suggesting the top of line single GPU card will be 10% to 15% faster than 5870, which makes sense considering Fermi is basically gt200 doubled with new features thrown in.
Problem is, Fermi is a larger chip making it hotter and more hungry than 5870 and more expensive to produce. It's gonna be in short supply and cost a bomb.
never said anything about fermi, other than that it is gonna be fast. i couldn't stand the heat that my last nvidia card produced (8600something) and i aaron, i know it'll cost a bomb. notice i mentioned ati in conjunction with value.
@Kojo
TF2 isn't that hard. Load up Crysis at max settings and your crossfire 4870's working hard to keep up. I've got two of them too. A pair of those cards is fairly nice, but they are far from as unstoppable as I thought they might be.
As for your Eyefinity question, I saw a picture of them running 24 monitors off of 4 "Eyefinity" edition cards. So yes, I think you can scale the monitors with each additional card, however, for normal consumers of the non-Eyefinity edition cards, the cards support 3 monitors instead of 6, and the driver's that will make them all play nicely together might need some smoothing out this early in the game.
In a related note, I got my first 1080p monitor, and am loving it. I have two older 1440x900 monitors I am running sandwiching it. Someday, I'll replace those and I'll eventually have 3 1080p monitors I would like to power via a single Eyefinity card (perhaps Radeon 6000 series or something).
However, I would like to mount them in portrait formation. Anyone know how to do that with monitors whose stands were not specifically designed for hold it it portrait?
Why the downvotes for Andrewwildman? He's right. I mean you simply have to love this card, no doubt about it, but shopping for a new card is kinda hard when you wonder about how the competition will perform. I'm building a new PC, started buying some parts, and it's tough to figure out if I should hold out for Fermi or just go with the 5970 when that comes out. Do I even want to wait to find out how the Fermi performs or just jump right in?
Wait regardless, either way I'd bet the Fermi release would drop prices on the Radeon line.
I can't hep but to wonder from time to time whether we still need cpu, seems like GPU nowadays has plenty to spare..
nVidia paying you to say that? Funny how they like to say the same thing, even though it's complete stupidity. Go try and run any OS on your GPU, see how far you get with that.
The entire reason we segrated functions was to make sure the appropriate components received the requisite bandwitch... but as fabrication becomes increasingly small, it may turn out to lead us back towards the general purpose processor... but, realize that all components will then be limited by the development of 1 component... the gpp. I'd prefer to keep the discrete components so I can upgrade whatever is improved as it's improved.
cant run snow leopard tho
You mean Apple don't have drivers...
HACKINTOSH FTW!!!! I love my open source community, and it loves me back :)
@richb93: Or even hardware support for it.
Yikes :P Thats one monster of a thing
I saw the stats and benches before they pulled them and my two 5850's in crossfire beat it..
That's actually great to hear, since I'd much rather have the smaller and less power consuming (I'd guess) 5850s in Crossfire than one of these giants.
they pulled it because the early drivers are crap, when it is released with the 9.12 drivers it will be just as good or slightly better than two 5870's now, however dual 5870's will probably pull ahead with 9.12 drivers because they have higher clocks.
It'll beat dual 5850's at high resolutions though due to the extra shaders per GPU, with show to make a huge difference past 1920x1200, and I'd expect it to cost between $350 and $450 at release so it will be a bargain aswell.
hmmm if these gpu's keep getting better at the rate they are right now, with drivers or whatever for the 5970, we're going to be hitting some serious bottlenecks with the cpu's, even the i7's are having trouble keeping up with some games.
i'm thinking of getting a 5870 myself but i honestly don't see the point of getting two never mind waiting for the 5970 seeing as my i7 920 won't be keeping up with a single 5870 (on some games). i'm gonna try and beat some sense into me and wait till the 5870's become cheaper and then pick up a second. i don't plan on upgrading my cpu in the next 5 years either
Meh, I'm not into PC gaming much, but I guess this is cool.
Maybe the next gen consoles will have it.
Or maybe your full or nonsense comments.
*of
@GingerFox: Or sounded way better ! :P
Fuck consoles, even next gen ones won't have this sucker!
Meh, I don't know what this article is about, but I'll comment anyway.
ATI's Radeon HD 5970 + ATI's Radeon HD 5970 = Pure OWNAGE
In crossfire, of course.
More like
ATI's Radeon HD 5970 + ATI's Radeon HD 5970 + ATI's Radeon HD 5970 + ATI's Radeon HD 5970 = Pure OWNAGE
4x crossfire for the win.
MASSIVE power consumption for the win :D.
What are you going to use it on? 100fps on Crysis doesn't look that different than 50fps, you know.
Might need two power supplies for that quad-crossfire...
Yeah.. anymore than two Dual GPU boards is just stupid, you'd have mad scaling issues, along with others that dual gpu boards bring with them.
FYI guys a GTX295 uses more juice than this card.
@Ypoknons: When you're running 120hz it does. Even at 75hz the different between 75+ fps and 50 fps is very noticeable.
Well they have Eyefinity, so you could always play Crysis in 7680x3200.
120mhz and Eyefinity are two very good points, mates, thank you. There's got to be more - 3D effects at high resolution maybe, but I'm not familiar with AMD's implementation.
@thethirdmoose
Actually 2 of these 5970's IS Quad-Fire. I don't think you can put 4 5970's together.
/salivating
Hand me a towel.
What I heard about the 5950 was that it's not a dual-GPU card, but actually the "Eyefinity 5870" with 6 DisplayPort connectors on the back.
*is jealous of the pc setup in the photo*
That is one monster of a card.
I feel like we need more games to actually push these cards to their limits. When a $150 card can play games like L4D2 at 1080p at full settings, it feels excessive to do things like put 2 high end cards in crossfire/sli.
I also would find it hard to buy an ATI card. My first 3 cards were ati and I had nothing but trouble from drivers and their catalyst software. On top of that, nvidia cards are the only ones that support physx, which is in more and more games now. Why buy an ATI card when the compareable nvidia will perform as well or almost as well while giving you physx?
Because nvidia kill puppies....maybe
yeah screw those who don't want to have to pay more for video cards. i mean, gaming at an affordable price? what insanity is that
Well nvidia HAS had some quality problems lately, and some recalls, but as long as they support the product if/when it fails I'd still rather get the more bang for my buck and the simpler, less intrusive drivers/software.
'cuase ATI drivers don't suck any more. I have a 4850, and you will hear no complaints from me
You need to turn down that RDF of yours. Nvidia's Physx is on it's deathbed. Everyone's adopting OpenCL for their physx, Nvidia included, trying to downplay the blow by making a statement along the lines of 'someone had to get the [in-game physics] party started'.
i agree with William. my first card was a X1650PRO and i had driver issues. next was a HD 3870 and the drivers were slick. setting up Crossfire on my HD 4870s seemed far too simple. the drivers are way better now. new drivers every month is really nice.
I've had quite the opposite experience.
All the ATI cards that have passed through this house have been faultless (in no order, 2600Pro, 2400, 2400 Mobile, X1650, X850XTPE, 4850, 4770, 9600 and some ATI IGP's)
All the Nvidia cards have given me shit. My sisters 8400 killed died, my Macbook Pro's 9400M died was replaced and is on its way out AGAIN, the 9600GT in the MBP runs at 90 to 100c while gaming and shuts the system off to save from heat damage and the 7600LE in my parents laptop has poor Vista drivers.
I wish Nvidia had given me a reason to NOT be biased when it comes to graphics cards :)
I shudder to think at the price, but i want one so badly:(
they should put this in a macbook
Ya I second that. Put that thing in macbook and I'll sue Jobsy for giving me third degree burn on my lap and back pain from carrying it around. That would make me rich for sure.
Looks like you need a portable nuclear reactor to power this beast.
i want Alienware so badly :-(
You see, this is why ati is winning the console wars they make the best GPU's.
Like Xbox 360s don't already get hot enough.
Can this even fit in a case?
The Empire State maybe.
not my mini-tower. you shoulda seen how hard it was to get my 4850 inside of it. But I did it.
let me say this before anyone else does:
duhhh Can this run crysis? ha ha (sarcasm)
Bet ya it can't handle BBC HD....
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/352954/ati-cards-struggling-with-hd-channels-in-windows-7
And I jizz in my pants.
fukkin' want.
This is sad for those of us hoping for a potential *770 X4 card that would basically be the best single value card on the market (and SLI/XFire problems will soon be done away with because of the aggressive trend in games... they're going to have to create better SLI/Crossfire support in games. Book it.)
I wanted my X4 too :(