Graphics chipset maker Nvidia has just released its first graphics cards based on the Fermi chipset, highlighted by the top-end GeForce GTX 480 that the company labeled as the “fastest GPU in the world.” Along with the GTX 470, the two new cards are Nvidia’s first GPUs to fully support Microsoft’s DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.0 (once 4.0 comes out), but the spotlight is on the GTX 480, which claims to comfortably beat “the closest competitive product” (read: ATI’s Radeon HD 5800 series) in DirectX 11 gaming performance.
Nvidia has just come out with the new GeForce 310 graphics card, an entry-level graphics solution that supports 64-bit systems, HD movies, and Windows 7’s graphics-heavy interface.
AMD has officially unveiled the ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics card, which currently sits on top of the company’s performance scale. The graphics card runs dual GPU chips for a total of 4.3 billion 40nm transistors and GDDR5 memory for the highest-end of high-end performance, and features 3200 stream processing units and 160 texture units, as well as support for DirectX 11 and OpenGL 3.2.
Maingear has just released new desktop gaming PC configurations that come equipped with ATI’s Radeon 5870 series graphics cards. Just released last week, the Radeon HD 5870 offers full support for DirectX 11, enhanced 3D visual effects, ATI Stream parallel processing, and ATI’s Eyefinity tech that allows for multi-display setups (for linking up to three monitors).
Sapphire is number two on the list of “partners to issue a release of ATI’s DirectX 11-compatible HD 5800 series.” The packaging and exterior design is different, but the features for Sapphire’s Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5850 are still similar to ATI’s reference design, with support for ATI’s Eyefinity multi-display tech and ATI Stream technology for parallel GPU-CPU processing. Both also come with 1GB of GDDR5 memory and enough processing power to make us feel a little bad about springing for last season’s batch of graphics cards.
Like XFX’s release, Sapphire’s HD 5800 series cards also come with a coupon for a free download of DiRT2, but also adds a free copy of Interactive Entertainment’s Battlestations Pacific.
