SAPPHIRE Technology announces the most exciting development in graphics for several generations - not only the fastest single GPU ever, but also the first video cards to support the advanced graphical features only available in Microsoft DirectX 11 and delivering spectacular video clarity, speed and visual effects, including over multiple monitors.

The SAPPHIRE HD 5870 is based on an advanced new graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD, the second generation of GPU to be built in its 40nm process. This is the very first series of graphics solutions to support the forthcoming DirectX 11, soon to be introduced with Windows 7 and supported in Windows Vista.

Club 3D, european graphics cards specialist is proud to announce the new HD 5800 Series lineup. Prepare to experience a riveting high-definition gaming experience with Club 3D HD 5800 series. Expand your visual real estate across up to three displays and get lost in the action with revolutionary ATI Eyefinity Technology. Using ATI Stream technology, accelerate even the most demanding applications and do more than ever with your PC. The first to deliver full support for Microsoft DirectX 11, The Club 3D HD 5800 series enables realistic and explosive HD gaming.

Enjoy an incredibly immersive HD gaming/computing experience with ATI Eyefinity Technology. This revolutionary multi-display technology allows you to expand your visual real estate across up to three displays with innovative "wrap around" capabilities to maximize your field of view with incredible sharpness and clarity.

Today HIS unleashed the revolutionary new HIS Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5, the most technologically advanced, feature-rich graphics processor ever in the market. Prepare to plug in for a ridiculously immersive HD gaming experience unlike anything you've ever seen!

Powered by the top-of-the-line 5870 GPU, HIS Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 accelerates PC gaming with nearly 3 teraFLOPS computing power! Running at 850MHz core clock speed and 4.8 Gbps memory clock speed, the, HIS Radeon HD 5870 ensure extreme game play at high resolutions and maximum settings. It is the first GPU in market to deliver full support for Microsoft DirectX 11 graphics and compute functionality. Besides, it features an architecture tailored to excel with DirectCompute 11 (Shader Model 5.0) and OpenCL, taking ATI Stream functionality to next level.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today introduces the next generation of video cards: the HD5800 series. Equipped with the first and only GPU to support Microsoft DirectX 11, the HD5800 will provide the ultimate gaming and Windows 7 experience.

The HD5800 series also supports ATI's exclusive Eyefinity technology. Eyefinity maximizes your field of view across up to three displays; with dual DL-DVI / HDMI / Display Port onboard design, gamers can easily get lost in the action. Compatible with ATI Stream technology, users will be able to transcode videos from their PC's to mobile media player in less time and with minimal effort.

Gamers are always pushing for the ultimate realistic gaming experience, and the XFX Radeon HD 5870 graphics card brings them three enormous steps closer to their ideal. First, ATI Eyefinity Technology enables gamers to see things like never before, with the ability to spread out across three displays at resolutions of up to 1080 pixels. Offering the first-ever "wrap-around" in-picture experience, gamers can surround themselves in the digital world, or, if productivity is the goal, maximize workspace with the ability to see more windows simultaneously.

Second, ATI Stream Technology ensures that today's demanding games play faster at higher resolutions. This state-of-the-art technology boosts systems performance by offloading tasks that were previously sent to the CPU to the GPU. The result? A more evenly balanced platform that can handle greater capacities at faster speeds.

AMD today launched the most powerful processor ever created, found in its next-generation graphics cards, the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series graphics cards, and the world's first and only to fully support Microsoft DirectX 11, the new gaming and compute standard shipping shortly with Microsoft Windows 7 operating system. Boasting up to 2.72 TeraFLOPS of compute power, the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series effectively doubles the value consumers can expect of their graphics purchases, delivering twice the performance-per-dollar of previous generations of graphics products. AMD will initially release two cards: the ATI Radeon HD 5870 and the ATI Radeon HD 5850, each with 1GB GDDR5 memory. With the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cards, PC users can expand their computing experience with ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology, accelerate their computing experience with ATI Stream technology, and dominate the competition with superior gaming performance and full support of Microsoft DirectX 11, making it a "must-have" consumer purchase just in time for Microsoft Windows 7 operating system.

"With the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cars driven by the most powerful processor on the planet, AMD is changing the game, both in terms of performance and the experience," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Products Group, AMD. "As the first to market with full DirectX 11 support, an unmatched experience made possible with ATI Eyefinity technology, and ATI Stream technology harnessing open standards designed to help make Windows 7 that much better, I can say with confidence that AMD is the undisputed leader in graphics once more."

American retailer ZipZoomFly.com has listed one of its first ATI Radeon HD 5800 series products, these ones from HIS. Both the HIS HD 5870 1 GB (H587F1GDG), and HIS HD 5850 1 GB (H585F1GDG) stick to AMD's reference board design, and sport a unique "sword" sticker theme compared to the manga characters used by another popular AMD partner.

Both accelerators are DirectX 11 compliant, and support ATI Eyefinity technology to connect to three display heads with 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution. Connectivity options include two DVI-D, DisplayPort, and HDMI with 7.1 channel audio. While the HD 5870 has 1600 stream processors, clock speeds of 850/1200 MHz (core/memory), the HD 5850 has 1440 stream processors, with speeds of 725/1000 MHz (core/memory). Going by ZipZoomFly's pricing, the HIS HD 5870 1 GB is priced at US $399, while the HIS HD 5850 1 GB stands at $299.

Here are the fist pictures of Sapphire's Radeon HD 5800 series offerings: Radeon HD 5870 1GB and Radeon HD 5850. The cards sport the usual sticker design of a CGI girl in a reddish background. With these cards having the cosmetic "red-streak" cleaving the cooler shroud in the center, the so is the sticker. This is also perhaps the first public picture of the Radeon HD 5850, and our size projections were right: While the Radeon HD 5870 maintains a long PCB, the HD 5850 is about as long as a Radeon HD 4870 (reference design). Both accelerators stick to the reference AMD design.

* Images removed at request of Sapphire * Google for alternate source

Here are some of the first performance figures of AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 5870 published by a media source. Czech Gamer posted performance numbers of the card compared to current heavyweights including Radeon HD 4870 X2, Radeon HD 4890, and GeForce GTX 285. Having not entered an NDA with AMD, the source was liberal with its performance projections citing AMD's internal testing that include the following, apart from the two graphs below:

• Radeon HD 5870 is anywhere between 5~155 percent faster than GeForce GTX 285. That's a huge range, and leaves a lot of room for uncertainty.
• When compared to GeForce GTX 295, its performance ranges between -25 percent (25% slower) to 95 percent (almost 2x faster), another broad range.
• When two HD 5870 cards are set up in CrossFire, the resulting setup is -5 percent (5% slower) to 90 percent faster than GeForce GTX 295. Strangely, the range maximum is lesser than that on the single card.
• When three of these cards are setup in 3-way CrossFireX, the resulting setup is 10~160 percent faster than a GeForce GTX 295.
• The Radeon HD 5850 on the other hand, can be -25 percent (25% slower) to 120 percent faster than GeForce GTX 285.

AMD reportedly used a set of 15 games to run its tests. Vague as they seem, the above numbers raise more questions than provide answers. The graphs below are clear, for a change.

Here are the first pictures of the obverse side of Cypress' PCB, and the first pictures of the centre of attraction: the AMD Cypress GPU. CzechGamer dissembled two Cypress "Radeon HD 5870" cards for a quick blurrycam photo-session. The PCB shot reveals quite a bit about Cypress, particularly about the GPU.

To begin with, the GPU is AMD's overhaul on transistor counts, and a bold work of engineering on the 40 nm manufacturing process, given the kind of problems foundry partners had initially. Apparently they seem to have recovered with most of them, as AMD's AIB partners are coming up with new products based on the 40 nm RV740 GPU on a weekly basis. The package holds a "diamond-shaped" die that is angled in a way similar to RV740, RV730, or more historically, the R600. The seemingly huge die measures 338 mm² (area), and for 40 nm, it translates to "huge", and is vindicated by the transistor count of ~2.1 billion. In contrast, AMD's older flagship GPU, the RV790 holds 959 million, and NVIDIA's GT200 holds 1.4 billion.

In a release to its AIB partners, AMD listed out the key features of its high performance GPU in the Evergreen family, codenamed "Cypress". While not getting into the GPU specifications, it lists out the key technologies the GPUs support. It comes as no surprise that AMD will name Cypress-XT and Cypress-Pro as Radeon HD 5870 and Radeon HD 5850, a model number scheme that's been running for the past two generations. While product launches, tentatively on September 22, and (p)reviews keep us busy in September, retail availability can be expected only in October, just in time for that of Windows 7.

• 1GB GDDR5 memory
• ATI Eyefinity technology with support for up to three displays
• ATI Stream technology
• Designed for DirectCompute 5.0 and OpenCL
• Accelerated Video Transcoding (AVT)
• Compliant with DirectX 11 and earlier revisions,supports OpenGL 3.1
• ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU support for highly scalable performance
• ATI Avivo HD video and display technology
• Dynamic power management with ATI PowerPlay technology
• 2x DL-DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI
• PCI Express 2.0 interface