What new features will DirectX 11 bring?
Posted by Dan in Graphics cards on June 10th, 2009
Details and specs for DirectX 11, the newest version of Microsoft’s gaming and multimedia API are beginning to pour in as its October 22nd release date approaches. DirectX 11 was originally announced around this time last year and is due to be released this October along with Windows 7.
Here’s a breakdown of DirectX 11’s details and specifications so far.
* Improvements in synchronization between multi-core CPUs
* Compute shader to handle non-graphical tasks such as physics acceleration and stream processing * Improved texture compression
* Improved tessellation calculations * Windows 7 and Vista compatibility
* Offers improvements to existing DX 10 and 10.1 hardware
DirectX11 has also been designed to to be easier for programmers to work with. ATI will release the first wave of DX11 cards, the Radeon HD 5850 and 5870 late this summer, with Nvidia’s Geforce GTX300 expected early next year.
An ATi demo illustrating some of the improved features of DirectX 11
DirectX 11 cards coming sooner than expected
Posted by Dan in PC Hardware on May 27th, 2009
At the end of last year AMD were warning drooling gamers that we’d have to wait until the end of this year before they’d show us any directx 11 lurve, but it looks like the game has changed.
Yesterday AMD confirmed that they have several 40nm cards coming out this year including the high end 5870 X2, based on the R800 GPU. This means it’s likely we’ll be seeing the first batch of dx11 cards a few months earlier than expected, in the form of the Radeon 5850 and 5870.
Nvidia will hit back a few months later with the GTX300 line-up, also 40nm.
ATI: Radeon 5850, 5870 X2 to feature 40nm cores
Posted by Dan in ATI, Graphics cards, PC Hardware on May 26th, 2009
The folks at Fudzilla are reporting that they’ve just got confirmation from ATI on the eagerly awaited 5850 and 5870 X2 cards. ATI’s DirectX 11 high-end card, codenamed R800 is made of two 40nm GPUs.
With an announcement on the X2 cards coming so soon, it seems like the flagship cards are probably just around the corner.
Geforce GTX 360 and 380 coming soon?
Posted by Dan in Graphics cards, Nvidia, PC Hardware on May 24th, 2009
While it’s certain that Nvidia’s new line of DirectX 11 compatible cards will be released sometime in Q4 this year (or maybe just before), what we’re not sure of is the name.
After working their way through a fairly standard naming system from GeForce 2 to 9 over the last ten years or so, Nvidia had to change convention when naming the latest range or else add an extra digit. Therefore, the far meatier sounding GTX 2 range was born. It seems likely than Nvidia will follow suit and release this as the GTX300 range, with the GTX360 and 380. News of GTX375 and 395 models and X2 versions are still anybody’s guess at the moment.
Radeon HD 5870 specs, release date leaked
Posted by Dan in ATI, Graphics cards, PC Hardware, Release Dates on April 28th, 2009
Details of ATI’s next high-end graphics card, the Radeon 5870, have surfaced on the webs. The new chip, also known as the RV870, will be released sometime later this summer, possibly July.
If the specs, which surfaced on the German site ATI-Forum.de are correct, the Radeon 5870 will feature a 40nm GPU instead of the 55nm processor found on current gen units. This should equal cooler running temps which will hopefully translate into high overclocking potential.
There aren't any images of the 5870 yet so here's a nice 4890
According to the site, the 5870 will also feature:
* 900 MHz core clock speed
* 1GB of GDDR5 running at 1100 MHz (effectively 4400 MHz)
* 1200 shader processors (compared with 800 on the current HD 4870)
* 32 ROPS (compared with 16 on the HD 4870)
* 48 TMUs (compared with 40 on the HD 4870)
* 2.1 TFlops of effective computational potential (around double the TFlops offered by the HD 4870)
* Native DirectX 11 Support
Although there isn’t anything official from ATI themselves yet, it all seems legit if the release continues their normal schedule of improvements and release dates. It would also mean the release of the Radeon 5850 at the same time as the 5870, with the inevitable 5870 X2 (and possible 5850 X2) following at the tail end of the year.
This isn't a 5870 either, sorry.