# The Fastest GPU Ever By A Large Margin



## TheGreatCrusader (Sep 23, 2009)

Daaaaamn. Take a look at the new HD Radeon 5870.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/ati_radeon_5870_fastest_videocard_ever_ps_its_380?page=0,0

It runs Crysis at nearly double the FPS and it uses less power. I'm a fan of Nvidia, but with this beast, ATI looks like they're really stepping up with their architecture.

What are your thoughts?


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## Darkwing (Sep 23, 2009)

*Drools*


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## Duality Jack (Sep 23, 2009)

xD lol it costs more then any console on the market for one part of a PC


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## LotsOfNothing (Sep 23, 2009)

I'm getting two.   >:C


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## Ibuuyk (Sep 23, 2009)

Do...WANT!!! ;_;

EDIT: 750th post ^^


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## Aden (Sep 23, 2009)

Holy shit


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## TheGreatCrusader (Sep 23, 2009)

The Drunken Ace said:


> xD lol it costs more then any console on the market for one part of a PC


But, combined with the right parts, it would last longer than any console and would look better.

That, and the prices on these items come down VERY quickly. It'll drop $100 in 3 months.


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## pheonix (Sep 23, 2009)

I likey.


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## Ragnarok-Cookies (Sep 23, 2009)

I'll wait until next Christmas, then next...and then next.

Longer I hold out, the better it'll get ._.


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## Runefox (Sep 24, 2009)

The Drunken Ace said:


> xD lol it costs more then any console on the market for one part of a PC



Yes, but this is "the next-gen console" of the PC world. It brings new features, promises of far better graphics capabilities including the ability to modify 3D models on the fly to be more detailed without any discernible performance impact, hardware-accelerated ambient occlusion (realistic shadows), and now the ability to offload general tasks to the GPU in a _standardized_ way. The multi-monitor capabilities are amazing, the power consumption when not in use is reduced, extra safeguards against overheating and overvoltage have been added...

PC's were already a step above the console market with the Radeon HD 4800 series and the GeForce GTX200 series, and now we're entering what will likely be the next-gen console market's capabilities. For $400 for the top-of-the-line model, that's not bad considering if you care about games to begin with your PC should be perfectly capable of handling it to begin with.

I'm still running a Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 512MB from when it first launched, and I could keep going with this for some time yet. I'd imagine by the time I NEED to upgrade to keep up, the life cycle of a console will have gone by - And I paid under $300 for this card, much like the 5850's price point.

It's only expensive if you compulsively buy every new card that comes out, and for that matter, this is where the console market gets their hardware. Cheer 'em on!


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## Neybulot (Sep 24, 2009)

Ehhh...Too much. I'm still unsure about their Linux support too. I haven't exactly heard good things about it.

I imagine Nvidia will try to put something better out though. The GTX295 comes close in some games, but it is more expensive and it's not a DX11 card like this is.


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## Runefox (Sep 24, 2009)

Actually, AMD/ATI's been releasing their technical documentation to open source groups, so open source Linux drivers have been in the works for all current ATI graphics cards up to the 4800 series, and indeed already exist (with _experimental_ 3D support so far and full 3D support for the X1000-series and below). I would say that more than likely, documentation for the 5800-series and its successors will also follow along this policy.

While their proprietary drivers aren't great, they have made many strides in the past year or so, and while they're still not up there with nVidia's proprietary drivers, they're mostly workable, and the promise of open source drivers is a plus for me in ATI's favour.


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## TheGreatCrusader (Sep 24, 2009)

Runefox said:


> While their proprietary drivers aren't great, they have made many strides in the past year or so, and while they're still not up there with nVidia's proprietary drivers, they're mostly workable, and the promise of open source drivers is a plus for me in ATI's favour.


That, and their cards are much cheaper. You're basically paying an extra $50 for extra security with the drivers.


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## Duality Jack (Sep 24, 2009)

No augment on the next gen thing but i am just sayin its hella expensive.


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## ToeClaws (Sep 24, 2009)

Not surprised - nVidia has been having trouble keeping up with ATI since the HD3800 series.


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## lilEmber (Sep 24, 2009)

This isn't so much them as it is DX11. It's just that good.
Then again they have a ton of advancements as well.


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## ToeClaws (Sep 24, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> This isn't so much them as it is DX11. It's just that good.
> Then again they have a ton of advancements as well.



Yeah - pity it's not going to be offered for XP (or Vista).  Very dumb move on MS's part, but I believe that's been well ranted over already, hehe.


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## TheGreatCrusader (Sep 24, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Yeah - pity it's not going to be offered for XP (or Vista).  Very dumb move on MS's part, but I believe that's been well ranted over already, hehe.


How is it a bad move? They're trying to insensitivize people moving to 7.


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## Darkwing (Sep 24, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Yes, but this is "the next-gen console" of the PC world. It brings new features, promises of far better graphics capabilities including the ability to modify 3D models on the fly to be more detailed without any discernible performance impact, hardware-accelerated ambient occlusion (realistic shadows), and now the ability to offload general tasks to the GPU in a _standardized_ way. The multi-monitor capabilities are amazing, the power consumption when not in use is reduced, extra safeguards against overheating and overvoltage have been added...



Reading all of this makes me feel very inferior, with my tiny little Radeon HD 3200 :'(


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## Sparticle (Sep 24, 2009)

Wow thats a sexy card.


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## fwLogCGI (Sep 24, 2009)

So how well will it work with Linux?


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## ToeClaws (Sep 24, 2009)

TheGreatCrusader said:


> How is it a bad move? They're trying to insensitivize people moving to 7.



It's a bad move because it forces ALL of the Windows gaming market (which is still 3/4 XP) to have to get Windows 7 if they want to continue enjoying PC games, or give up PC games if they don't want to use Windows 7 (for whatever reasons they may have).  I think they're slamming the door a little too harshly and a little too soon on a VERY large population.  I think the move would be justified in maybe 2 or 3 years, as we near the end of support for XP, but not now.

But then, since when has Microsoft cared the least about what the masses want, use or think?


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## LizardKing (Sep 24, 2009)

I just shat my pants



ToeClaws said:


> Yeah - pity it's not going to be offered for XP (or Vista)



FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF


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## LotsOfNothing (Sep 24, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Yeah - pity it's not going to be offered for XP (or Vista).  Very dumb move on MS's part, but I believe that's been well ranted over already, hehe.




Lol get 7 then.  XP's so outdated now.


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## ToeClaws (Sep 24, 2009)

LotsOfNothing said:


> Lol get 7 then.  XP's so outdated now.



That's just the thing - I don't want 7.  I don't like the EULA, don't like the redesign, don't like how bloated and inefficient it is, and don't like that they expect you to actually pay for it.  Since the only reason I have Windows around is for games, it's just not worth it.  And I know XP's outdated, but it's still supported, hence my original comment.


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## hollowx64 (Sep 25, 2009)

=P the driver are still in an early state for this card.

with polished drivers we will see the real pwer of this beast.

XD AMD/ATI = WIN.


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## net-cat (Sep 25, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> It's a bad move because it forces ALL of the Windows gaming market (which is still 3/4 XP) to have to get Windows 7 if they want to continue enjoying PC games, or give up PC games if they don't want to use Windows 7 (for whatever reasons they may have).  I think they're slamming the door a little too harshly and a little too soon on a VERY large population.  I think the move would be justified in maybe 2 or 3 years, as we near the end of support for XP, but not now.


Two things.

The gaming industry still produces games primarily for DX9. If they have DX10 support, it's generally optional. (Anyone remember Halo 2? "DX10 exclusive" that ran unmodified save for a version check on DX9?) Unless Win7 adoptions takes off like wildfire, this will continue to be the case for years to come.

The other thing is that XP is in its "Extended Support" phase. That is the "security and bugfix only" phase. Adding DX11 to XP doesn't qualify as a security update or a bugfix. Sorry. (You could make the argument for DX10 on XP or DX11 on Vista, though.)


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## ToeClaws (Sep 25, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Two things.
> 
> The gaming industry still produces games primarily for DX9. If they have DX10 support, it's generally optional. (Anyone remember Halo 2? "DX10 exclusive" that ran unmodified save for a version check on DX9?) Unless Win7 adoptions takes off like wildfire, this will continue to be the case for years to come.



Yes, thankfully.  I imagine that will continue to be the norm until the majority of Windows gamers are no longer using XP as their platform.



net-cat said:


> The other thing is that XP is in its "Extended Support" phase. That is the "security and bugfix only" phase. Adding DX11 to XP doesn't qualify as a security update or a bugfix. Sorry. (You could make the argument for DX10 on XP or DX11 on Vista, though.)



Aye, that is true.  I still think it's a rather lame excuse given the huge percentage of people using XP as the primary platform, but if they go by the books, they are indeed under no obligation to provide any further program updates to XP.  What burns me there though is that DX10 was underdevelopment, and later released, long before the end of normal support for XP.  They purposely chose not to do DX10 for XP.  

But yeah, overall, XP support is down to the security level, so they are within their rights to say that they're not doing anything more for it.  No supporting Vista with DX11 was the real shocker to me - I mean... wow... for as much as they want people to buy it and use it, they're already showing they have very little intention to continue supporting it (rather like Windows Me).


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## net-cat (Sep 25, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Aye, that is true.  I still think it's a rather lame excuse given the huge percentage of people using XP as the primary platform, but if they go by the books, they are indeed under no obligation to provide any further program updates to XP.  What burns me there though is that DX10 was underdevelopment, and later released, long before the end of normal support for XP.  They purposely chose not to do DX10 for XP.


Is Debian stupid for dropping support for sarge? Is Canonical a money grubbing corporation for dropping support for edgy? Maybe FreeBSD.org made a bad business decision dropping support for 4.11? (It's funny watching Dragonfly BSD, a fork of FreeBSD 4, slowly sell out and incorporate things from the later versions of FreeBSD that they had rejected initially.)



ToeClaws said:


> But yeah, overall, XP support is down to the security level, so they are within their rights to say that they're not doing anything more for it.  No supporting Vista with DX11 was the real shocker to me - I mean... wow... for as much as they want people to buy it and use it, they're already showing they have very little intention to continue supporting it (rather like Windows Me).


This wouldn't surprise me, actually. They _do_ want to distance themselves from Vista...


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## Runefox (Sep 25, 2009)

DirectX 10 didn't really see much widespread usage over the course of Vista's existence, mainly because the DX10 features couldn't take advantage of the faster DX10 rendering pipeline - Almost all of it was attached to a DX9 renderer to improve compatibility (mainly with the number of DX9 cards still in use and the widespread use of XP). A pure DX10 environment is said to be much faster than a hybrid DX9/10 environment, and we haven't really seen what a "pure" DX10 game can do, graphically or otherwise.

DX11 should be a little different. By now, everyone who cares pretty much has or is planning to get a DX10-or-11-compatible graphics card, and Windows XP is now in extended support - Meaning that it isn't an active development platform any more. Windows 7 might just be the analogue to 98 Gold versus 98 SE, but despite its similarities with Vista, it largely happens to be what would have happened had they waited a little longer to polish and release it - In other words, Vista done right. It still has its problems, but it's largely a very usable operating system, and even runs well on older hardware (a Dell Optiplex GX280, a Pentium 4-class machine with integrated 915GM video and 1GB of RAM, reportedly runs it nicely, which was coming from someone who had just nuked an XP install on it), unlike its predecessor.

It wouldn't surprise me if DX11 support became at least half as mainstream as DX9 a year from now.

Though, insert obligatory OpenGL is superior here.


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## ZentratheFox (Sep 27, 2009)

LotsOfNothing said:


> I'm getting two.   >:C



This, actually. 

The 4850s will stop being a bottleneck. Should go along fine with the rest of the rig (PhII 940+8GB DDR2), at least until I feel like going AM3 (PhII 955 + 8GB DDR3)


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