The new ASUS Radeon HD 6850 Direct CU aims to be the king of the sub-$200 segment. It offers plenty of performance for the latest DirectX 11 titles, overclocks very well and comes with improvements to the display output configuration. Instead of an AMD reference heatsink the card uses an ASUS Direct Touch heatpipe solution.
The cards for Point of View's GTX 460 TGT Beast are pre-selected based on their overclocking potential. This allows them to run the high clock speed of 855 MHz core and 1005 MHz memory. We take a closer look at this card that is just as fast as the much more expensive GeForce GTX 470.
As the names suggests, the ASUS ENGTX460 DirectCU comes with an ASUS DirectCu thermal solution. It also features increased clock speeds of 775 MHz core and 1000 MHz memory which result in about 10% real life improvement. What makes this card really attractive is the low price of $229 which is the same as you would pay for the plain NVIDIA reference design.
MSI's GTX 460 HAWK is the flagship GeForce GTX 460 from MSI. It comes with a quiet Twin Frozr II cooler, 1 GB of memory and 781 MHz core clock out of the box. MSI has also expanded on the voltmodding capability of the card which supports software control for three voltages.
ZOTAC's new GTX 460 Amp! Edition is the highest clocked GTX 460 version available right now. Its clock speeds of 810 MHz core and 1000 MHz memory ensure it delivers substantially improved performance over the GTX 460 reference design. ZOTAC is also using a custom cooling solution and includes a full version of Prince of Persia with their card.
Running at 800 MHz GPU and 1000 MHz memory, Palit's GTX 460 Sonic Platinum is one of the highest clocked GTX 460 cards out there. It also comes with 1 GB of GDDR5 memory which can provide a performance boost over the 768 MB variants too. Being priced at reasonable $249 this card looks like a good alternative to a reference design purchase.
MSI's GeForce GTX Cyclone OC uses NVIDIA's latest graphics processor, the GF104. But MSI has not stopped there, they use their own "Cyclone" cooling solution and have increased the cards operating clock to 728 MHz. As a result this 768 MB card is faster than the 1 GB version of the reference design.
Today NVIDIA launches their new GTX 460 Series. Axle is following the reference design implementation to the letter which means the card shows all the new improvements like low power, less fan noise and massive overclocking potential. Thanks to the memory choice of 768 MB it is also more cost effective than the 1 GB variant.
MSI's 1 GB version of the GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone uses 1024 MB of fast GDDR5 memory and clock speeds of 728 MHz to make it the fastest GTX 460 variant out there today. With a price of $239, it is only $10 more expensive than the reference design.
PowerColor has engineered a unique HD 5750. Their Go! Green Edition is completely fanless using a big passive heatsink, it also works without additional PCI-Express power connector, a configuration which limits the card to 75W maximum power draw. Considering that the AMD reference design requires 92W, PowerColor had quite a way to go. Did they succeed?
ASUS has released what seems to be one of the best custom designed HD 5850s. The card which supports DirectX 11 and Eyefinity is extremely quiet, offers better price/performance than the AMD reference design, comes with an overclock out of the box and supports voltage control via SmartDoctor.
PowerColor's brand new HD 5870 PCS+ comes with an overclock out of the box and an amazing cooling solution that makes the card quieter than any other card in this performance segment. For a price increase of only $10-$20 over the reference design this seems like a great deal.
Powercolor is the first add-in-board manufacturer to release a completely custom designed Radeon HD 5850. The HD 5850 PCS+ features a revamped cooling solution that offers extremely low temperatures and comfortable noise levels. It also comes with higher clocks out of the box that should give the card an extra performance boost.
HIS designed a Radeon HD 5750 that uses a nearly silent cooler by Arctic Cooling which makes this card a premium choice for HTPC or quiet gaming PC. Even though the cooler is quiet, the temperatures are low, which means you can get some nice overclocking out of your card. In our case around 20% free extra performance.
Powercolor's new HD 5750 PCS relies on a copper cooling solution by Zerotherm to keep the card cool. It does so without much fan noise and while being twice as energy efficient as the HD 4850 which is comparable in performance.
Today marks the day that AMD takes back the graphics card performance crown from NVIDIA. The new AMD Radeon HD 5970 comes with two fast Cypress GPUs on a single PCB. Using their latest power saving features, AMD achieved a very modest power consumption for this card which right now is the fastest money can buy.
With the release of AMD's latest Radeon HD 5970, the question comes up "What can be gained by going CrossFire?" We investigate the quad GPU performance of the HIS Radeon HD 5970. Even though the setup rip a $1200 hole in your wallet, performance will make you smile.
Sapphire's HD 5750 is priced competitively below $150 and offers all the new features like DirectX 11, AMD Eyefinity, native HDMI & DP and more. Even though the cooler does not look like it, it works extremely well and keeps the card cool and very quiet. We were also able to overclock our sample by more than 20% which essentialy brings the HD 5750's performance to levels of the HD 5770.
AMD's next step in their Radeon HD 5000 release strategy is the Radeon HD 5770 which is based on the new 40 nm Juniper core. It features 800 shaders and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus. Essentially this makes the card perform like a HD 4870 but adds new features like DirectX 11, ATI Eyefinity and reduced power consumption.
The HIS Radeon HD 5850 is based on AMD's reference design and delivers amazing rendering performance at a much more affordable price than the HD 5870. It comes with an impressing low power consumption and the lack of fan noise is also very enjoyable. Overall it seems like this will be the best high end card available this year.
Today AMD launches their new Radeon HD 5800 Series of graphics cards. They are powered by a brand new graphics processor called "Cypress". Our review goes into all the detail about the new HD 5870 flagship, but we also have HD 5850 scores so you can get an idea what to expect.
Sapphire's HD 4890 Toxic uses their exclusive Vapor-X cooling technology. This results in a card that delivers considerably more performance than the HD 4890 reference, yet does so without any excess noise. Actually the Sapphire HD 4890 Toxic is the quietest HD 4890 we ever had in our hands.
Today AMD released the world's first GPU that is produced in a 40 nm process. The HD 4770 is aggressively priced around ~$100 and offers great performance for your hard earned dollars. In our testing realized out that the card performs almost on par with the HD 4850. With the amazing 30%+ memory overclock we got on our sample, the HD 4850 will be surpassed easily.
Inno3D's latest graphics card release is the GeForce GTX 275 Overclocked. It is based on NVIDIA's P897 design but comes with considerably increased clocks. This results in a nice performance boost over the reference cards and allows the card to beat the much more expensive GeForce GTX 285.
Today NVIDIA released their GeForce GTX 275 Series. While there are no architectural improvements, the new cards offer substantially improved performance at competitive prices. Zotac's Amp! Edition offers higher clocks out of the box - is that enough to combat ATI's new offerings?
