Has AMD created the world's fastest graphics card?
According to Joystiq, AMD is claiming to have created the world's fastest graphics card. I'm almost afraid to see the system requirements to use it.AMD (ATI) has just launched its newest assault against competitor
Nvidia in the ever-continuing graphics arms race. It is touting the
awkwardly-named ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 as the fastest graphics card ever
made, with 2.4 teraFLOPS of processing power. (In comparison, Nvidia's
RSX GPU found in the PS3 promises performance of 1.8 teraFLOPS. ATI's
chip in the Xbox 360 promises 1.0 teraFLOPS.)The performance is
achieved by simple arithmetic: combining two ATI Radeon HD 4800 series
GPUs into a single card, and a whopping 2GB of onboard memory -- the
most of any graphics card on the market. The HD 4870 x2 is the first
card that supports AMD's upcoming "Cinema 2.0"
effort. However, until there's software that supports the endeavor,
purchasers of AMD's latest cards will have to simply appreciate playing
current games like Oblivion at 2560x1600 with 24X AA -- y'know, the way games are supposed to be played.The
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is immediately available from various "e-tailers"
with a pricetag of $549 SRP. A cheaper, less powerful little brother,
the ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2, will be available in September at an
estimated price of $399.
Posted at 05:07AM Aug 12, 2008
by Kevin P McAuliffe in Astound |