Well AMD recently rolled out its latest RV790 based board running at 1GHz, and the reason why this graphics card is so special is obvious, the dream of 1GHz on your graphics chipset is now a reality. Let us recap, their RV790 core has been announced at the beginning of April this year, and it just quickly found its place in AMD's best single GPU graphics card. The RV790 runs at 850MHz, which is a significant improvement over the 750MHz core of their Radeon HD 4870 versions. The difference between these two cards is at a glance quite insignificant and is evident only in the higher MHz counts, but note that the core went through some significant changes allowing it to run at 1GHz and maybe more. - FudZilla
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 295 series have been the king of the hill in graphics cards performance for quite a while now. Their initial design was based on two PCB's with one set of GPU, memory and voltage regulation for 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 chipset design. Just like the original GeForce GTX 295, the single PCB version comes with two 55nm GPU's that each have 240 shading units, memory bandwidth is 448-bit per GPU and each of these has 896MB of memory available. - techPowerUp
ASUS has long been considered one of the top manufacturers of all kinds of PC components, and it comes as no surprise that they have decided to make their own cooler for the brand new ATI Radeon HD 4770. They have called this board the Formula edition. ASUS being the big company they are, have paid a lot of attention to detail on the heatsink design. With this larger heatsink comes lower temperatures. Surely ASUS geared this board for the mid-range graphics card buyer who is looking to gain some performance by overclocking. Just one look at the Radeon HD 4770 specs is enough to say the card is the perfect card to play all the latest games at decent settings without breaking the bank. - Bjorn3D
Well as an ATI user ourselves, we can not dismiss the fact that one of the most versatile computer components that is out today, is these NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT based video card. Reason for us saying this, first it is cheap enough for just about anyone on any budget for light to moderate gaming, it can be used in a home theater PC for Blu-ray play back, and finally can be used as a dedicated PhysX card for those who wanting or needing that extra little bit in those PhysX based games. So as such this particular version does have multiple purposes that could fit with various needs depending on the usage. But in the end each could easily think of a solution where it would just fit perfectly. - Bjorn3D
ATI's Radeon HD 4800 series cards have been out for quite some time now, and for this reason the question is posed by users who want to just upgrade their computers, should we purchase a video card now or wait until ATI's new cards come out? It is almost impossible to give an answer, because it varies depending upon the buyer. Sometimes they'll wait a few months, and other times, well let's just say that it's like putting a kid in a candy store and telling them they've got to wait a week before they can make a purchase. So in order to assist you with this puzzle of whether or not a current GPU is enough for you, we will just be looking at another graphics accelerator card from Sapphire. - NeoSeeker
When looking at the current segment of mid-range graphics cards you just can't look beyond the GeForce GTS 250 accelerator which is in essence a reworked GeForce 9800 GTX version but optimized towards reducing cost and increasing performance. And that is really what NVIDIA has done, with taking a look at the PCB and redesign it for optimal usage in support of the G92b graphics core and bundling it with some high performance memory. Of course for most it can just be seen as a simple rebranding, but it is more. The GeForce GTS 250 chipset is a replacement for these older GeForce 9600 GT and ECS has equipped its card with 1GB of memory and support for 3-way SLI mode. How does it fare? - t-break
Back a few days ago we had the chance to present you with the most powerful single GPU card on the market, namely the 2GB variant of the GeForce GTX 285 manufactured by Gainward that also features a custom cooling solution. Though needless to say there are other companies that also manufacture a 2GB variant. Still since the GeForce GTX 285 models currently cost more than $325 we have decided to give you a view of a board which offers similar performance but with a lower price tag, word of course is about the GeForce GTX 275 edition. In fact, the GeForce GTX 275 version is the first product in quite a long time that manages to combine very high performance and a medium price tag. - RWLabs
So there has been this saying for a long time, you can never get enough. Well to us this means plain and simple, that you can never have enough computing power and that you will always be looking at new technology and new ways to accomplish the same tasks, but much faster and extremely more efficiently. We can remember ten years ago when we were building systems, the main concern was your CPU and your graphics card. Everything centered on getting the single best card you can and marry it with a great processor. Well, like the saying goes you can never get enough, and along came SLI and CrossFire to enable us to get even more by running two graphics cards at the same time. - HiTechLegion
Today when we speak about high-end video cards the dual GPU solutions such as these Radeon HD 4870 X2 and GeForce GTX 295 are really at the forefront of each line-up, however, single GPU offerings can bring about advantages in other areas such as heat output and often provide a more elegant solution. Today we are looking at two boards, the XFX Radeon HD 4890 Black edition and Zotac's GeForce GTX 285 Infinity. Both are each respective manufacturers fastest single core offerings and bring several improved features to the table. The Black edition contains a 1GHz core while the Infinity is supplied with increased clock speeds and a preinstalled waterblock for unmatched thermal performance. - DriverHeaven
Sapphire are certainly a name you will have seen over the years and have earned their place as one of the top ATI manufacturers in the business. They always go the extra mile with their models and often offer overclocked cards with custom cooling solutions. Recently we tested the Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X which offers a slight improvement over the reference model with an rather modest overclock and a custom cooling solution. Today however we will be taking a look at the real powerhouse that Sapphire have on offer, their Radeon HD 4890 Atomic graphics card. This Atomic edition's core is clocked at a mind numbing 1000MHz, a whole 150MHz increase over the reference model and Vapor-X cooler. - DriverHeaven
The amount of onboard memory on discrete graphics accelerators keeps getting larger and 1GB has already become a standard today. Does it mean time has come for the next increase? It is no secret that the question about the amount of onboard memory a graphics adapter needs is one of the eternal questions in the consumer 3D graphics industry that keeps surfacing over and over again as the games evolve. As a result, the minimal amount of onboard memory for a relatively high performance graphics accelerator has gradually increased to 512MB. Today the latter number little by little becomes the necessary minimum, while almost all higher-end solutions come with even 1GB of video memory. - X-Bit Labs