Now trying to keep track of whether NVIDIA or ATI have the fastest video card is about the same as asking what day is it? From one day to the next that title can change hands from one company to the other in a matter of hours. Looking back at the path that have gotten AMD to where they are today, has not always been smooth sailing, but when they released the first of their X2 series of cards things began to look up for them. This graphics card we are looking at today, very well maybe the last of these Radeon HD 4800 series of cards to appear since we are already seeing and waiting on these Radeon HD 5800 series to make their grand appearance, shifting the market in favor of ATI based cards. - Hi-Tech Reviews
Unlike motherboards, where manufacturers have the options to add features and components to differentiate one board from another, while graphics boards often are manufactured with the same design specifications. And in order to stand out in the sea of vendors, manufacturers often resort to aftermarket coolers to provide better cooling. In addition, they will sell boards with higher clock speeds than the reference, or bundle it with different accessories and games. They may also just provide different warranty options, such as lifetime or a double lifetime warranty. Thus, choosing a GeForce GTX 260 card from one manufacturer that sells at $40 more than another often means that you are getting more gear. - Bjorn3D
We love this Radeon HD 5870's and that is a problem for ATI because we expect to feel that same kind of passion for the Radeon HD 5850. If we don't there will be heck to pay, heck we tell you. Today marks the day of our first Radeon HD 5850 landing in our hands. And the first company to make it out of the gates? Well, it was the same one that made it out of the Radeon HD 5870 gates, Sapphire. So, with a full retail version of the Radeon HD 5850 on hand we are going to see how the card goes against some other important models on the market. Now in these performance department we're expecting it to sit in between the Radeon HD 4890 and Radeon HD 5870. The main reason being because it has to. - TweakTown
We have companies who make the efforts to send their product so of course we make the effort to check these. At launch however, we have got many companies who want the coverage, but most of the time the only difference between these cards is a sticker and sometimes a game in their bundle. And when it comes to performance, with these cards following the same clock speeds there isn't really going to be much of a change when it comes to the numbers. Apart from a little bit of fluctuation, there is not going to be a whole lot of difference. What we need to do when it comes to looking at the performance of the board is to mix it up in how we compare it, and this mainly in relation to the other brands. - TweakTown
For a while we saw a flurry of new NVIDIA cards while ATI kind of sat stagnant. That's stopped now with the release of the new Radeon HD 5800 series from the red team. Over the next few months we are going to see plenty of the Radeon HD 5870 we have with us today, along with these lower Radeon HD 5850 edition and the higher Radeon HD 5870 X2 version. Not only that though, we are going to see companies like Sapphire, Gigabyte and more put their very own spin on it, be it an Atomic or Turbo model. What we think the Radeon HD 5800 series is capable of today is going to be proven wrong within weeks with companies giving us even more performance than the stock model we will be looking at first. - TweakTown
Just recently we have seen MSI really mix it up when it comes to graphics cards. We had a look at this GeForce GTX 260 from the company which came in under the new Lightning series. And under this same category we've recently seen the GeForce GTX 275 show up with it being the graphics card of choice at the recent MSI overclocking championships. Though while the Lightning series seems to be reserved for the NVIDIA cards, ATI models haven't been left without. The Radeon HD 4890 we are looking at sits in their new Cyclone series. Within this Cyclone series we've got three models, their standard model followed by an OC and SOC model. Altogether the have a full range available, ready for battle. - TweakTown
Every time we look at a mid-range video card we always say how we understand that while everyone wants a higher performing graphics card, many simply just cannot afford or justify the money that is associated with buying one. Here today is no different really. We're looking at a mid-range ATI offering that has impressed us in the past and while these are no doubt not the fastest board on the market, they sit in a segment that is the most popular, and that is the mid-range market. That is also the right segment that many can afford and doesn't get the attention it deserves. Now with a few driver updates since the last time we looked at it and Sapphire choosing to mix it up a bit, it started to really intrigue us. - TweakTown
What's not to love about the GeForce GTX 295 version? We understand that you don't have to like the price, but you have to love the power that this GPU offers. What tends to happen with these high-end video card models from NVIDIA is that very few companies mix it up. Even though the card has clearly been around the block a few times, it continues to be the fastest graphics card on the market and Galaxy decided to mix it up to get our performance buds tingling even more. We saw the press release about the GeForce GTX 295 OC model from Galaxy just a while ago and for a long time we didn't hear heaps, then all of a sudden, they just push some seriously high quality products packing a big punch. - TweakTown
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 series have been the king of the hill on the video cards performance for quite a while now. Their initial design was based on two PCB's with one set of GPU, memory, voltage regulation each. Now NVIDIA has updated their design to cram all components onto a single PCB. While there was some speculation about such a product, many people thought it impossible to be realized due to the large die size and heat output of the GT200 chipsets design. Just like the original GeForce GTX 295, this single PCB version comes with two 55nm GPU's that each have 240 shader units, memory bandwidth is just 448-bit per chip and each has also 896MB of memory available. - techPowerUp
With the new ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cards due out soon, there's still plenty of surplus of Radeon HD 4890 GPU's just sitting around that need to be sold. The best way to do this is offer something a bit more exciting at a good price. Recently we have seen Sapphire really mess around with the Radeon HD 4890 model in a good way by releasing not only a 2GB version, but also a highly overclocked type sporting a 1000MHz core. Today we will be having a look at an Radeon HD 4890 from ASUS which falls into the Formula series of video cards. With some pretty impressive versions of these GPU out lately already, ASUS will have to offer us something that stands out from the pack. - TweakTown
The ASUS GeForce GTX 285 Matrix has really been a long time coming, noticed originally at Computex it was only going to be a matter of time before we got the hot little product in our hands. Following the Matrix naming scheme, the GeForce GTX 285 is the latest model to get welcomed into the lineup with open arms. We have to wonder though after having a look at some of the features the card offers, is it simply just a standard GeForce GTX 285 that has been given an nice dress and a set of heels to hit the town with or is there really something there that's going to grab our attention and help us warrant the $359 price tag. So let's check out the package and see if it's going to be love at first sight. - TweakTown