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ATI Radeon HD 5770 and 5750 steal away reviewers' hearts
The ATI onslaught of 40nm DirectX 11 parts continues today with two even cheaper variants coming from its Evergreen family of chips. Based on the Juniper core, the HD 5770 and 5750 represent ATI's mainstream value proposition, with compute performance of more than 1 TFLOPS and pricing between $109 and $159. There's a significant dropoff in specs from the world-conquering HD 5870 and similarly potent HD 5850, but reviewers found the latest cards were still up to the task, with the 5770's performance said to be "just shy" of the very recent top dog for ATI, the HD 4890. With low power consumption, competitive pricing and added features like Eyefinity and 7.1 HD audio, the new cards might not push performance boundaries, but they also leave you with little reason to look elsewhere for your next GPU purchase. Hit up the reviews below for more detailed impressions. Read - Hot Hardware review Read - PC Perspective review Read - HardOCP review Read - TweakTown review Read - Techgage review Read - AnandTech review Read - Hexus review
ATI Radeon HD 5850 provides scorching performance for a relative pittance
When the covers were slipped off the HD 5870 last week, what emerged was the new champ in graphics performance that could also boast a pretty aggressive price to performance ratio. The only question left for many was whether the slightly hamstrung version of the same Cypress chip, the HD 5850, would be able to offer even better value for money. With a suggested retail price of $259, lower power consumption under load and a shorter circuit board to cram into your case, the 5850 certainly appeals to the more sensible end of the graphics card market. All we really need to say is that Editor's Choice awards rained down upon this thing like they were going out of style -- so take a deep breath and hit the links below to plunge into the bar chart-intensive analysis.Read - Hot Hardware reviewRead - HardOCP reviewRead - Hexus reviewRead - PC Perspective reviewRead - Tech Report reviewRead - Legit Reviews review
$4,000 Alienware Aurora ALX benchmarked: domination this world has never seen
Alienware's Aurora ALX, which was just unveiled this week alongside ATI's blisteringly fast Radeon HD 5870 GPU, gets going at $2,299. If that doesn't bother you, the late-October estimated ship date might. Somehow, the benchmarking fiends over at HotHardware were able to grab hold of one of these rigs, and the results are fairly stunning (if not expected). Granted, their test configuration was a fully loaded $4,074 model, complete with a 3.33GHz Core i7 Extreme Edition 975 CPU, twin ATI Radeon HD 5870's in a CrossFire configuration and 6GB of DDR3 memory. Oh, and blue lights. Lots of blue lights. Put simply, the one-two CPU / GPU punch produced results that led to domination that made pretty much anything else out there look weak. Don't believe us? Hit that link for the bar-charted proof.
Windows 7 edges out Vista in thorough gaming benchmarks
Looking to find out what's the better gaming experience out there right now -- Windows 7 beta or Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 -- the folks at PC Perspective put both operating systems through the ringer with help from seven graphics cards running the gamut of price ranges. Overall, three ATI Radeon HD and four NVIDIA GeForce cards were pitted with six games and applications in one of the lengthiest benchmarking features we've ever read. AMD / ATI gets credit for being the first to release combined drivers that work on both OSs, and with one lone exception, performance on the Windows 7 machine was equal to or better than Vista. That said, the recomendations for each system is the same: ATI gets an advantage here for cards in the $120 to $130 range, but the competition is much closer as you start looking at more expensive models. Hit up the read link for technical details that you can shake an anti-aliased stick at.
AMD doubles up, announces ATI HD Radeon 4850 X2 and 4870 X2
Sure, times might be tough at AMD, but that's not stopping the crew at ATI from gunning for NVIDIA's newest gear -- the company just announced the new HD Radeon 4850 X2 and 4870 X2. Aimed at the "super high-end" of the market, the $399 4850 X2 and $599 4870 X2 feature two GPU chips on a 625 or 750MHz bus, respectively, with up to 2GB of 900MHz GDDR5 RAM. ATI says that there's a 20 percent overhead from pairing up the processors, so the X2s should offer 180 percent of the single GPU cards -- certainly enough to outgun a single NVIDIA GTX 280, and reportedly enough to match a dual-280 setup depending on the game. We'll see for sure when the inevitable flood of benchmarks hits when these bad boys arrive next month -- any gamers out there going to take the plunge?Read - ExtremeTechRead - CNET
AMD to launch Phenom on November 19th?
AMD is apparently getting ready to launch its new Phenom processor on November 19th, according to DailyTech. The chipmaker's media guide for the launch seems to have been leaked early, and it's got some interesting info in it regarding the Phenom and the next-gen Radeon. We already knew most of the Phenom deets, but it looks like the supporting RD790 chipset is also ready to go, along with three versions of the RV670 Radeon HD 3800 series. The low-end 3850 is actually a revised version of the existing Radeon HD 2900 with a die shrink from 80nm to 55nm, but the top-end Radeon HD 3870 is a new design with a 100MHz clock bump to 775MHz. All the cards feature support for Quad Crossfire and AMD's Triple Play Physics system, but don't feature any of the hardware video decoders that had been rumored. Unless something changes, we should be seeing all this stuff on the 19th -- which is probably when we'll know about pricing as well.
Gecube's Dual GPU Gemini 3, featuring four DVI ports
Gecube's Gemini 3 is the only solution on the market right now if you need a crossfire ATI card setup, but your motherboard only has one 16x PCI-e slot. The Gemini 3 is two Radeon HD 2600 XT GPUs on one card, featuring four DVI ports -- yes, you can hook up four monitors to a single card. The performance isn't exactly highest end, but the card certainly held its own in the testing that the Tweaktown guys put it through. It also happens to draw a relatively small amount of power, and keeps cool thanks to its massive dual slot heatsink and fan. Unfortunately, we've got no idea when or for how much you can get your hands on this little powerhouse.
AMD names names: R600 now the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT
AMD is losing the "X" prefix of its ATI graphics lineup, and slapping on "HD" to denote the changes and advancements in its R600-based DirectX 10 cards. Up top is the Radeon HD 2900 XT (the rumors were close), with 320 stream processors, double that of the GeForce 8800 GTX from NVIDIA. The lower-end RV630- and RV610-based cards will go as the HD 2600 Pro / XT and the HD 2400 Pro / XT. HD on all these cards denotes the Avivo HD technology on board for decoding H.264 and VC-1 video off of Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. The 2900 series also has full HDMI outs, with integrated 5.1 surround sound. No exact launch date or pricing yet, but we shouldn't have too much longer to wait.
