Windows 7 DX11 Cards

Was the wait worth it? Will you be buying one?

  • Price is too high so no to Fermi..

    Votes: 2 16.7%
  • I bought a 5000 series and am happy..

    Votes: 5 41.7%
  • Both Fermi and 5000 series way too expensive

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • At last! Can't wait to get my Fermi.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I'm waiting until the price drops.

    Votes: 4 33.3%
  • I'm going to wait for the refresh and 512 cores

    Votes: 1 8.3%

  • Total voters
    12
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Week 50 launch

AMD's PR has come up with a new PR statement in which they try to explain why they have delayed the Cayman card. Back at Los Angeles, at the Barts HD 6870 and 6850 presentation, they said that Cayman should launch in late November and now the new date is the week of December 13th aka week 50th.

Here is the official note and then we will translate it to real non-PR language. We only wish George Carlin was around to lend us a hand.

“Demand for the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series continues to be very strong, the ATI Radeon HD 5970 remains the fastest graphics card in the world and the newest members of the AMD graphics family, the AMD Radeon HD 6850 and HD 6870, have set new standards for performance at their respective price points, and are available in volume.

With that in mind, we are going to take a bit more time before shipping the AMD Radeon HD 6900 series. As of today, the NDA lift for information relating to the AMD Radeon HD 6950 and HD 6970 will be week 50. We will be providing additional information on these products, including the exact date and time of the NDA lift, in the weeks prior to launch." said Chris Hook and his crack spinner team.

This is how you should read it. Our dual-chip is still the fastest but we dropped it to below €400 to put more pressure on Nvidia, simply as Cayman might not be fast enough to beat the GTX 580, at least not the original spec.

We (AMD) now have three more weeks to try to get more performance and do some additional testing and hope that Cayman HD 6970 and 6950 will be enough to beat the GTX 580.

The card will barely make for Christmas but for most of people mid-December is too late for Xmas shopping. Let’s hope for AMD’s sake that the tweaked Cayman Radeon HD 6970 can beat the GTX 580, but considering the delays, this is becoming increasingly unlikely. We are giving Nvidia a three week advantage because we have to, not because we like to.

One more thing, component shortage is not the reason for the delay, we got that cleared out as Barts had the same issue, and still launched / shipped on time.

Antilles, Radeon HD 6990 dual card now slip into 2011 and it looks that Nvidia's dual-card comes in 2011 as well. We we're hoping to see both of them before the end of the year, but it appears that both the red and the green team had to change their plans.

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Some APUs, some renamed Evergreen 5000 cards

It looks like the six new Radeon listed in the new developers driver feature some renames and some of the first APUs to be released by AMD.

The new brands include ATI Radeon HD 6230, ATI Radeon HD 6250, ATI Radeon HD 6290, ATI Radeon HD 6390, ATI Radeon HD 6510 and ATI Radeon HD 6750.

This is not a typo the actual listing actually say that the cards are ATI’s and not AMD’s. Someone won’t be happy about it.

These are two possibilities as the Radeon HD 6200 can be either renamed Radeon HD 54x0 and 5500 series or it can be the brand that they will use for faster unannounced Zacate Fusion GPU. The later is quite unlikely as they already set the Radeon HD 6310 for 500MHz clocked Zacate, but you never know. If it’s a 5000 rename it’s a Redwood based chip, at least it should be.

The ATI Radeon HD 6510 has 68D9 product ID, something that fits in ATI Radeon HD 5690 brand name. This could be a part reserved for OEM customers. The most powerful rename is the ATI Radeon HD 6750, based on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series and Juniper codenamed chip.

The listing is Link Removed due to 404 Error.

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hmmm ATI/AMD doin an nVidia dirty trick would of never thought ATI/AMD would pull this after the uproar when nVidia did it
 
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SPARKLE Announced GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card The Fastest Graphics Card On The Planet | bit-tech.net


November 9, 2010 - SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today announced the SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card, the fastest Graphics Card on the planet which give users game a adrenaline shot.



Specification

Model Number SXX5801536D5NM

Graphics Processing Unit GeForce GTX 580

Graphics Core 772 MHz

Memory Clock 4008 MHz

Memory Type 1536MB GDDR5

Memory Interface 384-bit

Processors cores 512

Stream Processors Clock 1544 MHz

Bus Type PCI-Express 2.0

RAMDAC 400 MHz

Outputs miniHDMI x 1
DualLink DVI x 2





The Vapor Chamber Cooling Design

Implemented cooling solution based on Vapor Chamber Technology, the SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card runs not only cooler but also much quieter and provides more headroom for users to explore performance tweaking ! Vapor Chamber Technology is based on the same principles as heatpipe technology. A liquid coolant is vaporized at a hot surface, the resulting vapor is condensed at a cold surface then the liquid is returned to the hot surface. The recirculation process is controlled by a wick system. The coolant is water – but because the chamber is evacuated to a very low pressure, the vaporization process occurs at a much lower temperature than normal boiling point. The complex wick arrangement inside the module controls the flow of water and water vapor so that the system can be used in any orientation. The GeForce GTX 580 GPU heats Vaporization Wicks. Working fluid, pure water, is easily vaporized due to the extreme low pressure (<104 Tor or less). Water vapor moves easily through the vacuum until it meets the condensing wick - adjacent to the cooled surface - and turns back to a liquid state. The liquid is then absorbed by the Transportation Wick by capillary action and moved back towards the Vaporization Wick. The Vapor Chamber Cooling Design of the SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card is much more efficient than a copper heatsink at carrying away the heat because the whole area effectively transfers heat at the same rate.

The Next Generation Gaming Architecture

The SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card brings a host of the next generation of gaming calculation - GF110 never before offered for the PC -- including tessellation, DirectCompute and all other DirectX 11 hardware features. GF110 architecture is specifically designed to support next generation gaming effects such as raytracing, order-independent transparency, and fluid simulations. By using GF110 architecture, the SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card gets a tremendous boost in DX11 game performance and image quality, and brings film-like
game characters and objects to users. GF110 architecture also enhances PhysX simulations with tremendous speed upgrade. In addition, GPU computing now can be put in practice in latest DX11 games for improve DX11 gaming efficiency.

Ray Tracing Support: The Future Of Gaming

The SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card enables interactive ray tracing for ultra photo-realistic scenes. The SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card powers interactive raytracing, bringing spectacular, photo-realistic renderings to your screen for the first time. By using the power of the GF110 GPUs, the SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card supports recursion in hardware, enabling efficient ray tracing and a host of other graphics algorithms. It excels not just at standard ray tracing, but also at advanced global illumination algorithms such as path tracing.


32x Anti-aliasing technology

The SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card implements a brand new 32x anti-aliasing mode for higher levels of image quality. And the GeForce GTX 580's enhanced compression engine maintains incredible performance with anti-aliasing and resolution cranked up, providing both high frame rates and top notch image quality.


Tessellation Brings Incredible Detailed Gaming Visuals

Experience an unprecedented level of detail and realism in the latest games. Tessellation- one of the biggest new features of Microsoft DirectX11- helps developers create more detailed characters and terrain in games, bringing you sharper, crisper images and a more realistic experience. The SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card delivers up to two times the tessellation performance compared to GeForce GTX 480, bringing your games closer to reality without sacrificing the high frame rates you enjoy, letting mainstream gamers to experience an unprecedented level of detail and realism in the latest games, such as Lost Planet 2, AVP etc.

Total Immersive With NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround Technology
Prepare to be blown away by the most immersive PC gaming experience imaginable. Leveraging the power of multiple GF110 GPUs in an NVIDIA SLI configuration, NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround enables a new level of eye-popping 3D stereo gaming, expanding your real estate across 3 panels for the ultimate “inside the game” feeling. The SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card provides the incredible graphics horsepower to run your game in 3D stereo, across 3 panels, at HD resolutions up to 5760x1080. The SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card aslo supports gaming across three non-3D displays with resolutions up to 2560x1600,it's the best in Class 2D Surround Gaming.


NVIDIA™CUDA Technology With 512 cores CUDA C/C++ Support
CUDA technology unlocks the power of the GF00's 512 processor cores to accelerate the most demanding system tasks such as video transcoding delivering up to 7x performance over traditional CPUs.


Stunning DX11 Gaming Performance

Packing in 512 CUDA cores, a high speed GDDR5 memory interface, and full DirectX 11 support, the SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card is designed for groundbreaking graphics performance. With a revolutionary new scalable geometry pipeline and enhanced anti-aliasing capabilities, the SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card is the world’s most powerful single GPU Graphics Card solution, delivering up to two times faster performance than previous GTX 480 single GPU solution.


1536MB Incredible Large High Speed GDDR5 Video Memory

Today‘s DX11 game, such as Stalker: Call Of Pripyat, Metro 2033, they insanely use as large as possible number of bump texture, transparent texture to describe faces of characters and render realistic gaming scenes, so these DX11 games put rigorous demands on the bandwidth and capacities of video memory. The current situation demands at least 1GB video memory to run these games. Compared with high-end graphics cards on market with 1GB GDDR5 video memory, the SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card comes with incredible large 1536MB high speed GDDR5 video memory, meeting the rigorous demands from current DX11 games.


3-Way SLI Support

The SPARKLE GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card supports NVIDIA 3-way SLI technology, which provides even higher frame rates and permits higher quality settings for the ultimate experience in PC gaming when connected to a high-end, high-resolution monitor.


3rd Generation PureVideo HD

High-definition video decoder and post-processor delivers unprecedented picture clarity, smooth video and accurate color for movies and video.


OpenGL 4.1 Optimization and Support

Ensures top‐notch compatibility and performance for OpenGL applications.


Native HDMI 1.4a Support and Audio Input for HDMI

Fully integrated support for HDMI 1.4a including xvYCC, Deep color and 7.1 digital surround sound. High-definition audio transmission can be realized without spdif wiring.
 
Trouble said:
I think I've bought whole computers for the same price.

You're right, one can buy a notebook for this price. On the other hand, look what you're getting with that - not just a card, it's a 3-propeller helicopter! ;)
 
You're right the three blade helicopter is what really speaks to me and says Hey! Randy! Buy Me!, but unfortunately I can't find one with that cooler applied even Sparkles own site doesn't show it. So I'm wondering, was that a picture of a prototype, or is that an optional cooler that can be purchased seperately and add even more to the price?
Welcome to Sparkle Computer Corp.
 
I can't find one with that cooler applied even Sparkles own site doesn't show it. So I'm wondering, was that a picture of a prototype, or is that an optional cooler that can be purchased seperately and add even more to the price?
Welcome to Sparkle Computer Corp.


I guess this one is gonna be branded Calibre X580 with three PWM fans from Accelero Xtreme, the whole piece will be overclocked out of the box. Quite large and won't fit everyone. Quite expensive too, ~ $560.



Sparkle Announces Calibre X580 Graphics Card :: TweakTown USA Edition

SPARKLE GTX 580 /Calibre X580 features and specifications

Sparkle Announces Calibre X580 Graphics Card | techPowerUp



Edit:

So the cooling is included, not an option. There will be Sparkle GTX580 and Sparkle Calibre X580 overclocked and with better cooling, like 2 different models.
 
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Southern islands

We are expecting the first 28nm graphics chips from AMD to appear in 2H 2011, of course in case that TSMC gets the grip of the new 28nm process and doesn't run into any serious issues with the big process transition.

We’ve read a few rumours that Southern Islands can come in first half of 2011 and we can now confirm that this is highly unlikely. TSMC hasn’t taped out any 28nm AMD parts and even if they did, the production won't be ready until second half of 2011.

The 28nm manufacturing process is a big milestone for graphics as it will let graphics manufacturers to squeeze in even more transistors (Like three billion is not enough ed. ) achieve higher clocks and get significantly more performance at the same of lower TDPs.

The good news is that 28nm chips are still scheduled for 2011 and by this time next year there is a good chance we will have 28nm graphics from both ATI and Nvidia in the stores, provided all goes well for TSMC. Southern Islands might also be produced at Globalfoundries, but at this time we are not aware that GloFo is actually working on 28nm graphics.
 
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We got confirmation that Radeon HD6990, AMD's dual-chip board codenamed Antilles won't surface until Q1 2011, and we know that we've said before. This is an update. Despite original plans to launch the dual-GPU card based on Northern Islands in Q4 2010, it looks like AMD has decided to postpone this product till Q1 2011.

We don’t know if this is a business decision or that they have some issues but it doesn’t look like we will see Nvidia's dual chip card this year either.

AMD's graphics partners are not happy as they will miss the Xmas shopping spree before these cards arrive, but traditionally this part of market will wait for its product as a single chip is simply not an option for them.

You can only imagine how hot these card can end up as they will have two massive chips to power, but I guess this market will forgive the slight noise as long as the card perform as they are expected.

Cayman-based Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 should be the last cards to launch in 2010 and everything else follows next year.

News :Cayman VLIW4 + Antiles 6990 specs surface - Graphics-Cards - Graphic-Displays

In VLIW4 architecture, equipotent stream processing units are arranged in groups of four along with general purpose registers. Although the four have equal capabilities, two out of four of these (occupying 3 and 4 issue slots) are assigned with some special functions. AMD looks to be conservative with the benefits of the new SIMD architecture. It claims that VLIW4 gives similar computational power as VLIW5, with 10% reduction in die area. It also simplifies scheduling.

AMD Cayman, Antilles Specifications Surface | techPowerUp

Cayman packs 1920 stream processors, spread across 30 SIMD engines, indicating the 4D stream processor architecture, generating single-precision computational power of 3 TFLOPs. It packs 96 TMUs, 128 Z/Stencil ROPs, and 32 color ROPs. Its memory bandwidth of 160 GB/s indicates that it uses a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. The memory amount, however, seems to have been doubled to 2 GB on the Radeon HD 6970. Antilles uses two of these Cayman GPUs, combined computational power of 6 TFLOPs, a total of 3840 stream processors, total memory bandwidth of 307.2 GB/s, a total of 4 GB of memory, load and idle board power ratings at 300W and 30W, respectively.
 
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Update: Hold the presses, it's faster

AMD has talked to some of its favourite journalists and wants to prepare them for the European Cayman launch that should take place on December 15th, exactly seven days from now.

Some of the lucky ones got the cards that they are testing them as we speak, while partners should have the cards ready to ship early next week. We got a hint about the performance, and we will settle for that.

AMD's own benchmarketing data claims that Cayman XT is slightly below 20 percent faster than a GTX 480 in 3Dmark Vantage. When we compare our own GTX 480 results and add 20 percent on top of that it turns that Cayman XT loses to both GTX 570 and especially GTX 580.

It looks like AMD has big gains versus GTX 480 in all OpenGL games including ET Quake Wars, Wolfenstein MP and Chronicles of Riddick, quite old games if you ask us. It is around 20 percent faster than the GTX 480 in these games.

In HAWX 2 Radeon HD 6970 is some 15 percent faster than the GTX 480, and in Dirt 2 it is over 15 percent faster. When we compare the scores we have with this game and GTX 480 and add additional 15 percent we don’t see it beating the GTX 580, but it gets close.

The smallest gain is in Far Cry 2 with only a few percent faster than GTX 480, following with World in Conflict where ATI is below 10 percent faster and Metro 2033 where ATI wins by slightly over 10 percent, again vs GTX 480.

There might be some cases where Radeon HD 6970 will be able to beat the GTX 580, but the first impression is that Nvidia should end up slightly faster in most games.

Update: It appears that our usually well informed source failed us, and forwarded a photoshopped roadmap. So, we plainly got served. We are in the process of gathering more reliable info on Cayman performance and we will write an update as soon as we get something worthwhile. It will clearly end up quite a bit faster and we apologize for the inconvenience.

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Either way it's always good to have AMD snapping at Nvidia's behinds, as means neither company can charge idiotic prices (except for the top end) or rest on their laurels for too long.
 
AMD Radeon vs NVIDIA GeForce: Last Stand for Graphics


NVIDIA's Fermi GF110-powered GeForce GTX 580 sets a high standard, so can AMD's Cayman GPU with VLIW4 architecture save the Radeon HD 6970?

Over the past several years of testing desktop graphics hardware, I've enjoyed a unique perspective of the internal happenings that remain hidden from the public. Much like politics, there is the truth, and then there's what you've been convinced into believing. I've watched their tactics, and witnessed their desperate attempts to sway consumer opinion. As competition for sales within the desktop graphics segment provokes fierce competition, it also raises the stakes for the companies involved. In this editorial article, I'll share my opinion of what appears to me as the last stand for desktop graphics between the AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce video cards.
On 15 December 2010 AMD will launch their latest flagship graphics processor, codenamed Cayman. This new GPU features dual graphics engines with an asynchronous dispatch and off-chip geometry buffering to 8th generation tessellation units. Equipped with a 2GB GDDR5 256-bit video buffer, the Cayman GPU can offer up to 24 SIMD engines and 96 Texture Units. Additionally, the AMD Radeon HD 6900-series will introduce several new MSAA modes including Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing (EQAA). But will this be enough for the upcoming AMD Radeon HD 6970 to compete with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580? It seems unlikely.
Based on Catalyst driver 8.790.6.2000 (8.79.6.2 RC2) given to press, the Radeon HD 6970 delivers approximately the same performance as NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 570. Recently launched at the $350 price point, the GeForce GTX 570 and Radeon HD 6970 go back and forth between tests but at no point does the Radeon HD 6970 ever approach GeForce GTX 580 performance levels. According to AMD this won't occur until Q1 2011, when they unveil the Radeon HD 6990 X2 video card. Featuring dual Cayman GPUs, the codename 'Antilles' produce line will replace their aging Radeon HD 5970 video card. Unfortunately, missing the holiday shopping season could prove to be a deadly mistake for the AMD graphics team.
NVIDIA was fortunate to launch their GeForce GTX 580 at the beginning of November (2010), allowing for plenty of time to reach store shelves and holiday wish lists. Their GeForce GTX 570 came a month later, and barely makes its way onto market just in time for holiday gift shopping. Launching only one week before Christmas and with inventory in scarce supply, the AMD Radeon HD 6970 and Radeon HD 6950 video cards might not see any gaming action over the long holiday break as a result. This brings me to the point of this editorial: could this be the last stand for significant desktop graphics matchups?

Full article: AMD Radeon vs NVIDIA GeForce: Graphics Last Stand | AMD,Radeon HD 6970,NVIDIA,GeForce GTX 580,Cayman,VLIW4,Fermi,GF110,Desktop Graphics,Olin Coles,AMD Radeon HD 6970 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580: Last Stand for Desktop Graphics by Olin Coles
 
Either way it's always good to have AMD snapping at Nvidia's behinds, as means neither company can charge idiotic prices (except for the top end) or rest on their laurels for too long.

That's exactly what I say to those who express their hatred for either brand.
 
That's exactly what I say to those who express their hatred for either brand.


Quite agree bud, I used to be an Nvidia fanboy, but gradually AMD's kit has matured to a very good bang for buck and forced Nvidia to let loose it's new and improved "fixed" FERMI cards (460, 570, 580) which cured a lot of the stigma and mirth among the AMD camp, it benefits the end users so who cares who's top if we all get a good deal? I'd quite happily buy a Nvidia card again now they sorted out the problems they had with first gen fermi cards.
 
The harder they both fight, AMD/Nvidia, the better it is for us... Especially when a price war erupts.
 
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Excellent price, 6950 for €225

We just got an update of Radeon HD 6900 series pricing. The Radeon HD 6970 will sell in Europe as of 5 AM Wednesday for €275+VAT, while Radeon HD 6950 will sell for just €225+VAT euro.

The UK suggested retail price is £225 incl VAT for Radeon HD 6950 and £279 incl VAT for Radeon HD 6970. UK chaps will get the cards at 6.00 AM due the time zone differences. California and the rest of Pacific time zone will get the card on December 14th at 9.00 PM, while east coast New York gets it December 15th at 00.00 AM. This is a surprising move as the prices are much lower than anyone had expected. For comparison, the Geforce GTX 570 sells for at least 340 euro, while the cheapest Geforce GTX 580 on the EU market sells for 480 euro, and in most cases for well over €500.
We heard that €360 for 6970 and €320 for 6950 was the plan before, but obviously it got canned. One can only hope that AMD can make money with such low prices, but as end users we should simply be thrilled for getting great graphics cards at such low prices.

The prices are excellent and even if the cards ends up somewhat slower than the GTX 580 and GTX 570, they will definitely be very attractive due to competitive pricing.

Kudos to AMD for the price, the fight is on

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Roundup: Bitter-sweet rhapsody

AMD has officially launched its own Cayman based HD 6900 series graphics cards featureing enhanced second generation architecture, DirectX 11 support, new image quality features and AMD's Eyefinity multi-display support. AMD's official press release is of course full of praise but the actual launch leaves a bitter taste since AMD didn't manage to outrun the GTX 580 in the king of the single-GPU king-of-the-hill race.

Don't get us wrong as the HD 6970 and HD 6950 are rather good cards considering the price/performance ratio. AMD also took time to officially explain, once again, that the new architecture (the VLIW4 design) is the key in gaining the 10 percent improvement in performance/mm2. The Cayman is also first GPU that has AMD's PowerTune technology that automatically adjusts GPU power draw by controlling clock speeds, and despite the fact that it does saw a couple of Watts, it also keeps the GPU inside the predetermined TDP.

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The suggested price tag was the most surprising information concerning the Cayman launch and at US $369.99 for the HD 6970 and US $299.99 for the HD 6950, AMD pulled the Cayman down into a completely different battle, the one for the enthusiast market segment. The HD 6950 on the other hand doesn't have a competitor yet, but it is rather a card that has to deal with the HD 5870, at least until this one "mysteriously dissapears" from the market.

Nvidia's GTX 570 is breathing heavily down the HD 6970's neck and we are sure that we'll see a price adjustment coming from Nvidia pretty soon. Although the reviews are mixed, most reviewers agree on the same thing, AMD's Cayman is a decent card considering price/performance ratio, but we just can't shake off the previous battle for the fastest single card expectations. Bitter or not, AMD's Cayman cards are here to stay and at least the availability looks decent.

You can find our review here, while some of the reviews from other sites can be found below.

- Anandtech.com
- TechPowerUp.com - Radeon HD 6950 - Radeon HD 6970
- PCPerspective.com
- HotHardware.com
- HardOCP.com
- NeoSeeker.com
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