Posted 11/01/09 at 04:24:58 PM by Justin Kerr

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?

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Posted 10/23/09 at 08:45:40 AM by Paul Lilly

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)

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Posted 10/14/09 at 03:38:18 PM by Bart Salisbury

ATI plans to celebrate next week’s Windows 7 launch with two new DirectX 11 graphics cards. The Radeon HD 5770 and the Radeon HD 5750 will each sport 1GB of GDDR5 memory, and have core clock speeds of 850Mhz and 700Mhz respectively. Other features include two dual-link DVI ports, a HDMI port, and a single 6-pin PCI-E power connector.

The Radeon 5700 series card will be built upon ATI’s new 40nm “Juniper” chip, which consists of 1.04 billion transistors on a 166mm² die. The smaller chip makes it possible to ATI to offer the cards at lower prices than the current DirectX 11 capable Radeon 5800 series cards: the HD 5870 and HD 5850. Price for the HD 5770 is set at $159, with the HD 5750 going for $129. ATI will later release a 512MB version of the HD 5750 for $109.

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Posted 09/29/09 at 06:42:56 PM by Pulkit Chandna

AMD and Nvidia will go full throttle in the fourth and final quarter of 2009. Both the GPU makers will trot out a number of GPUs across various price points in the fourth quarter. Nvidia will have the GeForce GT210, GT220 and GT240 on the market before it inaugurates the GT300 series in December, according to Digitimes.

Sources at graphics card makers expect AMD to unveil the ATI Radeon HD 5770 and 5750 in October, and Radeon HD 5870 X2 and Radeon HD 5850 X2 a month later. The report adds that AMD will launch the single-GPU Radeon HD 5890 when the market seems to plead for it. That apparently is Digitimes’ way of saying that its sources have no idea when the Radeon HD 5890 will be released.

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Posted 09/28/09 at 12:40:07 PM by Paul Lilly

In Act I of the modern-day GPU wars, AMD lit up the scene by releasing the ATI Radeon HD 5870, the fastest single-GPU videcoard money can buy. In Act II, AMD will hope to also claim the dual-GPU crown with its upcoming HD 5870 X2.

The latest rumor pegs the beastly dual-GPU videocard for an October release, though AMD hasn't said anything official yet. Nevertheless, to satisfy power users with deep pockets who are chomping at the bit, leaked pics of the 5870 X2 have hit the web.

Not just one leaked pic either, but several of them, each one showing the 5870 X2 in its massive glory. The X2 appears to trump the 5870 in length, which already measures about 11 inches long. While it's hard to determine exactly how long the X2 will be, it looks to be about a half-inch longer.

Get your fill of fuzzy GPU porn here, then hit the jump and sound off!

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Posted 09/25/09 at 02:47:54 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

This week, we welcome regular Maximum PC contributor Loyd Case to the show to chat with Gordon and Will about IDF, the sassy new Radeon 5870, and Intel's first Larrabee showing. After a too-short trip to the lab, we jump straight into reader questions, before closing with another installment of Gordon's Rant of the Week. 

Do you have a tech question? A comment? A tale of technological triumph? Just need to get something off your chest? A secret to share? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our 24-hour No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337--operators are standing by.

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Posted 09/23/09 at 12:15:40 PM by Paul Lilly

AMD is back in the high-end graphics game with the release of its ATI HD Radeon 5870, the fastest single-GPU videocard anywhere on the planet (see our review and benchmarks here). And now that it's been released, we expect no shortage of system vendors to step up to the plate with new rigs build around the potent GPU.

One of the first to announce immediate availability of the new cards is Maingear. The boutique system vendor says the HD 5870 can be configured with the company's Ephex, F131, Prelude, and X-Cube (SFF) systems.

"We're proud to feature the AMD ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics processor in our award-winning custom PCs," says Wallace Santos, CEO and found of Maingear. "It's only fitting that the world's fastest GPU find its way into what has been hailed by editors all over America as the fastest gaming computers on the market."

For those of you needing to push pixels at ultra-high resolutions with all the eye candy cranked up, Maingear says its ePhex supports up to three HD 5870 cards in CrossFireX, and up to two in the Prelude and X-Cube.

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Posted 09/23/09 at 11:30:00 AM by Loyd Case

AMD’s graphics division, the former ATI Technologies, loves a good surprise. The company has been a perennial also-ran in the graphics performance arena, but every now and then, it one-ups the competition in a big way. That happened back in 2002, with the launch of the original Radeon 9700, which stole the performance lead from archrival Nvidia. It happened again last year, with the Radeon HD 4800 series. The 4850, 4870, and 4890 weren’t always faster than the competition, but they were small, efficient chips that forced Nvidia into a price war that was good for users but bad for Nvidia’s bottom line.

Now AMD’s doing it again, putting some serious hurt on the competition with the first GPU to support Microsoft’s upcoming DirectX 11 API. AMD’s also been paying close attention to the emerging market for non-gaming apps accelerated by GPUs, such as video transcoding and digital photography, fully supporting DirectCompute 11 and OpenCL standards for general purpose computing on graphics cards.

This new chip is no shrinking violet in the numbers department. Every number associated with the new Radeon 5800 series is staggering: 2.15 billion transistors, 2.7 trillion floating-point operations a second, more than 20 gigapixels per second throughput, 1,600 shader units. Other numbers impress because of their smallness. One example: The idle power is a scant 27W— lower than many entry level GPUs.

Given the sheer scale and ambition of this GPU, does it deliver in the performance realm? And will it deliver at a price normal humans can afford? Let’s find out.

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