ATI Radeon HD 5870 review

AMD's latest pixel pounder is the fastest single GPU graphics card on the planet

ATI Radeon 5870 review
The ATI Radeon 5870 is now the fastest graphics card on the planet

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ATI radeon hd 5870 review

Beyond infinity

  • AMD is bigging up the new 5800's display-driving prowess. An upcoming version of the card known as the Eyefinity Edition will be able to drive no less than six screens thanks to a sextet of DisplayPort sockets. A nice trick, but really who is going to care?

Less is more

  • Despite the monster performance of the new 5870, AMD remains committed to delivering an ultra-high end board powered by a pair of 5800 series GPUs. It will no doubt be a performance powerhouse. But few will see the need for anything more than a single 5870.

Size matters

  • The new 5870 is a big old beast, longer than even the GeForce GTX 285. And yet it isn't a major gas guzzler. AMD says it has worked particularly hard on reducing idle power consumption, an effort that is not fully reflected in our power-at-the-wall testing.

More to come

  • The one thing that remains untested is ironically the 5870's defining feature, its support for DirectX 11. Despite the recent release of the final shipping version of Windows 7 and therefore the API itself, as yet there are no DX 11-compatible drivers or applications.
Contributor

Technology and cars. Increasingly the twain shall meet. Which is handy, because Jeremy (Twitter) is addicted to both. Long-time tech journalist, former editor of iCar magazine and incumbent car guru for T3 magazine, Jeremy reckons in-car technology is about to go thermonuclear. No, not exploding cars. That would be silly. And dangerous. But rather an explosive period of unprecedented innovation. Enjoy the ride.