Who uses a Sempron to power a 5870? Sounds like a retarded build to me. I guess I miss your justification to Drashek's post.

Hey Drashek.. you gonna power them Radeon HD 5870s with your Sempron :p

HAHAHAHAHA!

In most CPU articles you bash Intel for having the best performance stating it's not needed but then in GPU articles you herald the new performance being brought forwards by AMDs Radeon HD 5870.

Quite the double standard there buddy. A Fast GPU needs a fast host processor (CPU) to feed it data especially since the Radeon HD 5870 X2 should be bottle-necked by even the fastest Core i7s out there (it's got so much performance that it can drive 6 screens.. no Sempron is going to power this puppy on just a single screen even at maxed settings).

AMD is not rushing through driver releases. They release new driver every month and versions are named according to year and month. For example current one is 9.9, a month ago it was 9.8.

They just demo'ed X-Plane on Linux running 24 monitors and it was using bezel management software, which as of yet isn't supported in Windows. Linux drivers can't be that crap now, eh?

Decent drivers? The current version is 9.9. Guess that sounds better than 99, eh? Talk to the owners of ATI mobile GPUs, talk to the owners of products with AGP interface, talk to the owners of any graphics card that is older than a year. But please, do not pretend that you use the ATI flgrx driver for Linux and everything is all right, because that PoS does not even support the current Linux kernel!

I agree that 12 is too many. This need to have a product at every possible price point has been taken too far. I think 6 would have been plenty. Especially when we know 6-12 months from now will be a refresh of slightly newer basically the same cards.

As for drivers, I find ati's drivers are pretty decent actually. No worse than all the nvidia 'experiences' I've had. Linux included. The reality is both companies are making new hardware so quickly that their drivers lag and quickly fall into the no longer updated category. Nvidia doesn't update drivers for cards more than a few years old either. Price of progress I guess...

Or should it be "Flanders & Swapp"?

Regardless, great reference.

Yup, thats 12 cards in all. Far too many imo. There is simply no requirement to have so many sku's unless you are going down the NV marketing path (i.e. greedy manipulation). What does a 5830 do that a 5770 doesn't? And no techno babble in reply, this is all about limiting functionality to eek every $ or £ out of the product. They just needed the 58xx range, none of the underpowered nonsense. At the very least stop at the 57xx range...
On the plus side i'm pretty sure the 5870 is going to be a big fat win for ATI. And the X2 should be stupidly extravagant.
I just hope NV reply well and a price war ensues...

Heres bit of quip from unbeliever:

Let's wait to see if AMD introduces DirectX 11 based graphics cards by the end of this month or next month when Windows 7 is expected to launch

Expected- OMG its little late to turn around, as theres NO Known issues. Dx11, Thats entire point, My Friend.

Now just think about half year or more for final pci-e 3 specs & completion of design, then whaddya getz: 3,200 or more shader processors on 6+ screens per card, BIG Time. Quality Going Straight UP.

DRASHEK

Yup, thats 12 cards in all. Far too many imo. There is simply no requirement to have so many sku's unless you are going down the NV marketing path (i.e. greedy manipulation). What does a 5830 do that a 5770 doesn't? And no techno babble in reply, this is all about limiting functionality to eek every $ or £ out of the product. They just needed the 58xx range, non of the underpowered nonsense. At the very least stop at the 57xx range...
On the plus side i'm pretty sure the 5870 is going to be a big fat win for ATI. And the X2 should be stupidly extravagant.
I just hope NV reply well and a price war ensues...

AMD is rushing through the driver version numbers because - things are working that well? No. Some of the AMD hardware is STILL not supported by AMD's hardware. And don't even bother to ask for Linux support. Not to mention the endless list of issues that need to be fixed. The release notes of past driver releases name those issues which SHOULD HAVE BEEN WORKING when we BOUGHT the hardware.

As soon as the Radeon HD 5xxx series shows up in the stores, people with a 4xxx card will find that their hardware is OBSOLETE and soon no longer supported. Same happened to all the other hardware from AMD, of course, you might say. Well, the point is that the same will then quickly happen to the 5xxx series.

"The release of these GPUs does mean that the ATI Stream UVD 2.0 technology could become a little bit more 'affordable'".
I´ve got a 4350 with UVD 2.0 for 40 bucks. Can they make these cards cheaper than that?

Yes, the 5870 has twice the amount of shaders that the 4870 has. But the 5850 only has 1440 I think.

So, almost double may not be the best word for it, but...

Umm by creating so many SKUs, isn't the red team stepping into green territory?

check this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ATI_graphics_processing_units

very useful but also watch the reviews for fps performance in your favorite games.

The leaks suggest that the 5850 has less shaders than the 5870. 5830 - what is this part? Its the first time i have seen anyone mention it ...
... after a bit of googling around, I found this rather outdated "source"

So which cards don't need extra power from psu?

how is 1600 shaders "almost double" 800 shaders? Isn't it exactly double?

Wow, they are working on covering all market segments with their new generation GPU very fast.