Maximum PC videocard RSS Feed

Stoked about AMD's HD 5970? Good Luck Finding One in Stock

Paul Lilly — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:15:49 -0600

AMD's newest HD 5970 is the fastest videocard on the planet, and as it turns out, it's also the hardest to find. And not just in the U.S. either, the card has been equally elusive in the EU.

According to news and rumor site Fudzilla, several AMD launch partners confirmed there would be limited availability of the card, and that's been the case so far. Newegg showed some stock in the wee morning hours on November 18th, but by the time noon (PST) rolled around, stock was gone. The $625 price tag doesn't appear to be slowing demand.

Fudzilla says it's been told to expect to see stock of the XFX Radeon HD 5970 and 5970 Black Edition sometime today, but it's unclear if that will include the U.S. market, or be limited to Europe.

Seen the HD 5970 in stock somewhere? Post a link in the comments section below.

Nvidia Posts Photo of Working Fermi Card

Paul Lilly — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:50:40 -0600

Perhaps looking to steal a bit of thunder from AMD's awesome HD 5970 videocard, Nvidia PR guy Brian Burke today posted a picture of the green team's upcoming Fermi-based graphics card. Isn't marketing fun?

On his Twitter account, Burke referred to the Fermi card as a GeForce 100, which he said is the first GeForce GPU based on the new architecture. A screenshot in the background shows the videocard running the Unigine Heaven DirectX 11 benchmark.

That's all that was said (and shown), but the bigger message is the unspoken one that says, "Hey, we're still here, and we're poised to kick AMD's tail." No one from Nvidia actually said that, mind you, but they might as well have if they're going to post a pic of their upcoming graphics card when the talk of the town is centered around AMD's flagship GPU.

Image Credit: Brian Burke, Nvidia

ATI Catalyst 9.11 Now Available for Download

Paul Lilly — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:30:49 -0600

ATI on Tuesday released its Catalyst software suite, version 9.11, for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. The latest release appears to put a heavy focus on squashing bugs as opposed to injecting performance enhancements to specific gaming titles.

New features include GPU acceleration of H.264 video content using Adobe Flash Player 10.1 beta, and high quality downscaling for video transcoding MSE. Everything else in the release notes is geared towards resolving issues for various OSes. Some of these include:

Users can now enable and disable CrossFire when three displays are configured in extended mode (all OSes)
Catalyst Control Center no longer stops responding when setting Eyefinity SLS mode for extended HDMI display (all OSes)
Resolved an issue where high bit rate audio from Blu-ray discs might not output when using PowerDVD 10 (Windows 7)
Wolfenstein no longer stops responding when running a 2560x1600 resolution (Windows 7)
No more green lines at the bottom of the screen when playing some interlaced content (Vista)
PowerDVD no longer intermittently terminates when playing HD MPEG2 content in extended/clone mode (Vista)
Transcoding of AC3 files no longer shows corruption in transcoded files (XP)

There are plenty of other bug fixes, as well as some lingering known issues, all of which you can view in the release notes here (PDF).

Catalyst Download

Image Credit: AMD

Maingear Stuffs Two HD 5970 Videocards into Shift PC

Paul Lilly — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:30:13 -0600

A little prerequisite reading is in order. If you haven't done so already, be sure to check out Lloyd Case and Gordon Mah Ung's article covering ATI's Radeon HD 5970, a videocard we've dubbed "The Undisputed Performance Champ." Once you read through that feature, you'll be in a better position to appreciate the awesome power that comes from cramming two HD 5970 videocards into a CrossFire X configuration, and that's exactly what Maingear has done.

The boutique system vendor today announced the immediately availability of said cards into its Shift PC. By doing so, Maingear says gamers are afforded 10 teraflops of pixel pushing power when enhanced with the company's Redline technology.

"The Maingear Shift was designed specifically to harness the incredible amount of GPU power that is on the horizon," said Wallace Santos, CEO and founder of Maingear. "The ATI Radeon HD 5970 truly ushers in a new era of everyday supercomputing for the consumer. Besides having a total of 3200 stream processors each for an incredible gaming experience, with Windows 7 and DriectCompute, these cards can be used to accelerate everything from video editing and transcoding to advanced photo manipulation."

As we previously reported, the Shift can be configured with either an Intel P55 or X58 foundation, and you can outfit either one of them with a pair of HD 5970 videocards. All that power doesn't come cheap, however, and you'll be looking at about an additional $1,500 over the base configuration, which includes an Nvidia GeForce GTS 250.

Image Credit: Maingear

Fermi Delay Unlikely to Impact Nvidia's Short-Term Sales

Paul Lilly — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:25:05 -0600

Like everyone else, we're chomping at the bit to see what Nvidia's next-gen Fermi graphics chipset (GT300) brings to the table, so we're a little bummed it's been pushed back until Q1 2010. The delayed launch, however, isn't expected to negatively impact Nvidia's sales for the remainder of 2009, DigiTimes reports.

When Fermi does ship, Nvidia will position the GPU into three different product lines, including the GeForce brand, Quadro, and Tesla, according to company CEO Jen-Husn Huang.

While the delay is unlikely to hurt Nvidia's bottom line, that could change if Fermi gets pushed back a second time, some analysts warn. They say Nvidia could start to lose some of its market share should Fermi arrive in April 2010, as AMD will in all likelihood have already started shipping its entry-level Radeon HD 5600 and 5300 GPUs.

Image Credit: Nvidia

Intel Quietly Promoting Larrabee in China

Paul Lilly — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:00:44 -0600

Intel hopes to eventually make a thunderous entrance in the discrete graphics market with its upcoming GPGPU chip codenamed Larrabee, and to do that, the company needs to line up some chip partners willing to jump on board. Intel CEO Paul Otellini set out to do that recently, talking privately to several China-based videocard makers.

According to what un-named sources have been whispering in DigiTimes' ear, Intel plans to offer preferential pricing for just the GPU by itself, as well as when bundled with other Intel products. This is a similar strategy to what Intel has been doing with its Atom platform, and it remains to be seen how many graphics partners will warm to Larrabee in this manner.

As it stands, some first-tier graphics card vendors are a bit leary about Larrabee on fears that the first release may end up buggy. But within the next couple of years, vendors expect Larrabee will be able to hold its own against what AMD and Nvidia have to offer.

Image Credit: Intel via Engadget

Leaked Photos of the Radeon HD 5970 Dual-GPU Card Emerge

Justin Kerr — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:24:58 -0600

Last month we posted a link to some early spy shots of the Radeon HD 5850 X2 & 5870 X2, but aside from the pictures, the post was a bit short on details. The card which still hasn’t been officially unveiled by AMD is still somewhat of a mystery, but the gang over at Alienbabeltech.com got a hold of some new photos and information that answers some, but not all of the questions we have about the new design.

Based on the reference card shown in the pictures, it appears as though this monster will require two power connections, one 8-pin and one 6-pin which are located just above the fan. Even if the power requirements of this beast don't shock you, the overall length of the card just may. Measuring in at a whopping 13.5 inches long, most enthusiasts without a full tower case will have a hard time fitting this into their machines. AMD responded quickly by stating that the photos were of an engineering sample, leading us to wonder if the card won’t shrink an inch or two prior to release.

The other big change since our last update is the new naming conventions. It now appears as though AMD will be dropping the “X2” designation and the cards will be known as the Radeon HD 5950 (Dual 5850’s), and the Radeon HD 5970 (Dual 5870’s). Questions remain, but hey, its better then nothing right?

ATI Catalyst 9.10 Drivers Now Available

Paul Lilly — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:45:40 -0500

AMD's latest graphics drivers -- ATI Catalyst 9.10 -- are now available for download, and it appears that most of the attention was placed on squashing bugs.

On the performance side, AMD claims the latest release adds GPU acceleration for the Windows 7 Drag and Drop video converting application, and super anti-aliasing for the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series has been tossed into the mix as well. And that's it, at least according to the release notes.

Bug fixes are another story. Catalyst 9.10 resolves several issues, some of which include:

Video preview in Avivo Video - Basic Quality page no longer flickers while playing SD/HD Blu-ray titles
Switching profiles in Avivo Video - Basic Quality now works as it should
Ghostbusters game no longer flickers between desktop and game play when AA is set to 8X and game resolution set to 2560x1600 in under Windows 7
Combat Mission Shock Force no longer fails after a duration of game play (Vista)
Intermittent flashing no longer visible in Windows with ViewSonic VE150m displays (Vista)
No more corruption during Blu-ray DVD H.264/VC-1 content playback (XP)

For the full list of changes and bug fixes, reference the Release Notes here (PDF). Driver downloads here.

Image Credit: ATI