As you might have read in my earlier post , I received an ATI 5870 video card and I had to nickname it “the beast”, because this sucker is big, and that’s just how I like it. I’m upgrading from an ATI 4850, which is another fabulous video card, but I’m certainly not going to deny myself the opportunity to try out this latest one.
If you are interested in all the fancy numbers, you can view the technical specs here , but here are the main features from the ATI site.
As you can see in the images above, this is obviously a dual-slot card, meaning it’s going to take up two spots on the back of your PC. This wasn’t a problem for me as I don’t have any other PCI cards installed, but it’s something you need to take into consideration. Installation was quick, just make sure both slots are free, snap in the card, and hook in the power. After making sure it was securely in, it was ready to go. Next step was booting up and installing the latest Catalyst drivers, which is a straightforward installation and I didn’t run into any issues whatsoever.
On the card it has two DVI outputs, an HDMI output, and a DisplayPort output. In my current setup I have two 22” widescreen monitors hooked up to the DVI ports. I’m still contemplating on what to do with the HDMI port. Anyways, after the driver installation I had to go into the display properties and easily configure Windows 7 to setup the dual-monitors to display as I want them to which is the main monitor on the right, and the second on the left.
I just installed this a day ago, so I’m going to break it in for a bit, and then follow-up with a review on the performance of the card from a user point of view, not the super technical number crunches you often see.
I wondering how that FPS vs Refresh rate fleshed out.
Was someone impling the vertical sync can be dynamicly changed by the video card?
If the monitor is locked at 60Hz refresh, then it can only do 60fps. What gives here?
BTW: HDMI 120Hz and 240Hz TVs are just fancy footwork. HDMI link is 60Hz and they use interpolation math to create the extra frames inbetween. I heard it's great for sports but some hate it for movies.
Some lag issues are not fps related. Some TVs & LCDs have a processing pipeline that can delay the display by many frames. A 60hz frame is 16.666ms. That 120Hz/240Hz HDMI TV will definitely have a pipeline delay of 2 or more frames. A PC monitor would likley have the lowest delay.
My friends big rig home theater lagged the other TVs by several seconds. We would rush in from the patio to get a good look at the NASCAR crashes. Some home thearter rigs allow the audio to be delayed to match the screen. Maybe it's all automatic now.
ATI 5870 rocks. I never had a better card before that I know of and I won't be needing a new GPU card for many months since its also DirectX 11 compatible and I can already play DX11 games on max settings... The best thing for me is that I bought it new for only $359 from Newegg. It will of course get cheaper in time. But for its time it was a very good deal to get a card that was actually sold out on newegg in like 3 days and limited quantities. I am glad I was one of those who checked Newegg when they've had it in stock.
Been using GForce before for years, switched back to ATI. Now when ADM owns it its so much better. I am ATI again and happy about it.
OK, I will be buying one soon. The price should drop, after tax refund season, after NiVida relaeases new cards.
So lets see now, 5870, Windows 7 (for DX11) , 4G more Ram (for W7), larger monitor (to enjoy it all). That's about $1100 dollars.
the 5800 series are great cards,i have a 5850 @ 900/1200 and games runs silky smooth.
I'm considering the cheaper W7 OEM. Is there any real gaming benifit to spending more?
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