The most powerful single video card available today (with geeky customer review)

[DainBramaged]

SAPPHIRE 100281SR Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card $409.99
ETA:11/23/2009 at Newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102856&cm_re=hd5870-_-14-102-856-_-Product

(customer's review)
got my 5870 today and installed it in my system. Before I did that, I ran 3DMark 06, and Vantage while my 4870 X2 was installed (these are TWO video cards tied together with a crossfire connector to DOUBLE the video output, quite common up until now for power users). Here are the numbers I got when I tested the 5870, and then compared the results to my earlier 4870 X2 results. In 3DMark 06 the 4870 X2 scored 23,379 Points and the 5870 scored 23,127 Points. The separation between the two cards was 1%. In Vantage, my 4870 X2 scored 17,190 points, while my 5870 scored 17,161 points. The difference here is 0.1%. All in all, the cards pretty much ran Identical. Thats great considering the 5870 has a single GPU. I also noted temperature and fan speed differences at idle. The 4870 X2 at idle was 68 degrees Celsius with a fan speed of 27%. The 5870 was 43 degrees Celsius with a fan speed of 21%. The 5870 is significantly cooler, and quieter. All cards were tested at there default clock speeds. system... Asus P6T6 Revolution mainboard, Intel i7 940 overclocked to 3.65Ghz, Corsair 1600 Mhz DDR3 Dominator Ram, Corsair 750 Watt Power supply, and of course the Radeon HD 5870.


many people will buy and hook up two to four of these with crossfire connectors .



For gaming and professional applications, simply amazing.

And I was impressed by my two 4850's.........

[Dead_Parrot]

1. Although the 5970 is hitting the shops any day now...

:hide:

[Gore1FL]

2. I prefer nVidia over all others. n/t

[hobbit709]

3. My $30 NVidia GS8400 does all I want it to.

I don't play games(don't care for them). It plays DVD's just fine, renders my fractals just fine and runs Folding@Home GPU just fine. And it didn't cost more than the rest of the computer.

[Fumesucker]

4. Hmmm... I'm running an Asus P5KPL-CM mobo with a built in Intel G31/G33 graphics board..

It does all that and runs Flightsim X and Stellarium (an amazingly realistic virtual reality planetarium program) both fast enough to be as smooth as I want them.. I think I paid $75 for the mobo and I have four gigs of PC2 6400 RAM and a Pentium E5200 dual core at 2.5 GHz..

I don't play games either but I do like my Flightsim..

I do a fair bit of image processing with Photoshop CS3, Registax and Iris and my setup runs those fast enough to keep me happy..

My mobo has a PCI-E x16 slot and I was going to add a moderate video card but so far haven't needed it for anything I do.