ATI just announced its latest greatest polygon cruncher on the planet: the
previously leaked Radeon HD 5970. The new card card is also one of the first to support Microsoft DirectX 11 and Eyefinity multi-display (driving up to three displays at once for a 7680x1600 maximum resolution) with ripe potential for overclocking thanks to the card's Overdrive technology. Instead of relying upon a single GPU like the already scorching
Radeon HD 5870, the 5970 brings a pair of Cypress GPUs linked on a single board by a PCI Express bridge for nearly 5 TeraFLOPS of computer power, or a mind boggling 10 TeraFLOPS when setup in CrossFireX. Naturally, the card's already been put to the test by all the usual benchmarking nerds who praise the card as the undisputed performance leader regardless of game or application. It even manages to keep power consumption in check until you start rolling on the voltage to ramp those clock speeds. As you'd expect then, ATI isn't going to offer any breaks on pricing so you can expect to pay the full $599 suggested retail price when these cards hit shelves today for retail or as part of your new gaming rig bundle.
posted November 18th 2009 1:49AM
Think... 5870, 5970, 5850, 5950
The only thing that changes is the 8!
Just blew my GTX295 out of the water! Good job ATI, i've always had better luck with their cards from a reliability standpoint as well. Next card will probably be ATI, let's just see what NVIDIA releases.
cmon, nvidia...
A little soldering, a little duct tape, an extra battery or two and my Acer Inspire One netbook is gonna take over the world!
will it run crysis ; )
Waste of money, what game are you gonna play with it? I assume you all finished Crysis by now so what good is this? You can buy an xbox 360 and a ps3 for the same price
You can split screen on two displays and play it in insanely high resolutions. Presence of Eyefinity means that AMD actually thought how to answer the question before releasing the card.
Except I don't want to play my games at 1280x720 or below you console peasant. ; )
That's a little expensive to play hi-res console ports.
NvidiaTeslaWha???
As much as I think this is cool.. I can't see spending $600 on a video card.
I mean you can seriously get a PS3 AND an Xbox360 (good versions 120gb each) for LESS than $600.
I just bought an Arcade Xbox +60gb + Extra Controller for $205. Now for which games to pickup.
Yeah, this generation of consoles are extremely powerful, but right now, this $600 card could power higher resolution and much higher detail than the 360. With correct implementation of Eyefinity, it boggles the mind. But you do pay out the nose.
it seems as if for the first time in a long time when i upgrade my motherboard, I am getting an AMD mobo and grabbing an ati card. I do not really know what intel is doing with the two sockets that are out. otherwise I would love to have an i7.
OMGG this engadget commenting system is the WORSE EVER.
anyone can recommend me the best graphic card for $200-300
@rodney
Radeon 5850, if you can find one, should set you back around $300.
@rodney
Radeon 5850 is definitely what you want as rodney said, newegg has it instock right now http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102857&cm_re=5850-_-14-102-857-_-Product
624.99 on newegg. You might aswell pay 399 a pop for 2 5870s for even more power. That may be $175 more, but at this price point for either, money isn't a issue for whoever is buying. Plus, this thing is like an inch and a half ,give or take, bigger than my gtx295. Who can even fit this thing? I had to take out my hard drive rack and mount them in the floppy cage just to fit my 295.
$599 isnt so bad compared to the price of it in the uk, it should be that $599 is about £358 + british tax is about £411 so say £415, but the cheapest model (powercolor) is £519 which is $869. I take it the price massive price difference is because they dont actually want to sell any of them in the uk.
I thought Brits VAT was "what you think the value of the device is, added". So if you thought this card was worth US$600, it should easily be worth £600.
See that? At £519, your government just saved you some money!
would 4x5970 work?
@pademon
No, CrossfireX works with up to 4 GPUs only. That could be 2 5970s, 4 5870s, or a 5970 and 2 5870s. Keep in mind though, if you mixed the cards, the 5870(s) would downclock to the 5970 speeds.
but you can do 4x5970 for crunching, right? you don't need the xfire ribbons to crunch~
When NVIDIA releases their competitor card, and if it's better in performance (I'm sure it will be), I still won't regret buying a 5870, because NVIDIA will do what they always do:
1. Assume they have what everyone wants (even if they don't)
2. Charge twice as much as they should
Also, I fail to see how the 5970 doesn't do worse than 2 5870s, as it suffers from 125MHz less engine clock, and 800MHz less RAM clock...