ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series, The First DirectX 11 Compliant GPU

AMD today launched the most powerful graphic processor ever created, found in its next-generation ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 series graphics cards, 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.


ATI Radeon HD 5800 series is up to twice as fast as the closest competing product in its class, allowing gamers to enjoy incredible new DirectX 11 games – including the forthcoming DiRT™ 2 from Codemasters, and Aliens vs. Predator™ from Rebellion, and updated version of The Lord of the Rings Online™ and Dungeons and Dragons Online® Eberron Unlimited™ from Turbine – all in stunning detail with incredible frame rates.

FYI, RV870 became known as "Cypress". The official name now is the Radeon HD 5870. Cypress is one member of an entire Evergreen family of products in development at AMD, all of which will share a common technology base. Initially, two cards, the Radeon HD 5870 and 5850, will be based on Cypress. Another code name, Hemlock, denotes the multi-GPU card based on dual Cypress chips that will likely be known as the Radeon HD 5870 X2. Juniper is a separate, smaller chip aimed at the range between $100 and $200. AMD would slot Juniper-based cards into the Radeon HD 5700 series. All of these products are scheduled to be introduced between now and the end of the year, some in rapid succession.


The rest of the Evergreens will fall after Christmas, in the first quarter of 2010. Redwood is slated to serve the mainstream market (i.e., really cheap graphics cards) and Cedar the value segment (really even cheaper, like $60 cards). When all is said and done, AMD should have a top-to-bottom family of 40-nm, DirectX 11-capable graphics card offerings.

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Acer's new Ferrari One - VROOM!

Acer's new, Ferrari One netbook will be among the first wave of low-cost portables to be based on AMD's new Vision platform. The new system downplays technical specifications, instead dividing AMD-based machines into three simple performance tiers, dubbed “Vision”, “Vision Premium” or “Vision Ultimate”.

Accordingly, the three tiers are characterised as “See”, “Share” and “Create”. Basic Vision laptops offer basic capabilities for playing music and videos, while the more powerful Vision Premium adds ATI Stream support for transcoding video (plus DirectX 10.1 support for gaming) and Vision Ultimate adds extra power for video editing.

The Acer Ferrari One netbook will feature the new low-power, mobile processor from AMD – the Athlon Neo X2 Dual-Core L310 – which boasts twin cores, a clock speed of 1.2GHz, 1MB of L2 cache and support for 800MHz DDR2 RAM, plus ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics.

The Ferrari One will launch on 22 October, to coincide with the official launch of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system. It will ship with either a 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium or 64-bit Windows Starter Edition.

There's still no optical drive, but the Ferrari One is well-appointed, at least in netbook terms. It comes equipped with a luxurious 11.6in screen with bright LED backlighting and a crisp resolution of 1,366 x 768. Other specifications include draft-n wireless, Gigabit Ethernet, optional 3G and Bluetooth, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard disk, with more expensive models offering up to 4GB and more capacious hard drives.

The new netbook also sees the re-emergence of the ATI XGP interface. This odd-looking socket sits alongside the One's standard D-SUB video output, and allows the connection of an optional docking station, equippined with HDMI port, and six more USB sockets to supplement the three that are arranged around the One's standard three.

Where Acer's new netbook could struggle, however, is longevity away from the mains. Although it ships with a seemingly impressive 5,600mAh, six-cell unit as standard, Acer's press material stated a rather conservative battery life of around five hours.


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Radeon HD 5870 spotted

Details about the ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPU is spotted on the net. This upcoming product will be launched on 23rd September 2009. It features DirectX 11 and ATI Eyefinity Technology. It accelerates PC with 3 teraFLOPS of computing power. AMD doubled the number of SIMD units from 10 to 20, that means 1600 stream processors and 80 TMUs.


Here are the specifications:
Computing power 2.72 TFLOPS
Core Clock Speed 850MHz
Stream processors 1600
Frame buffer 1GB, 4.8Gbps
Max/idle power 188W/27W
Max resolution 3 x 2560x1600
Two 6-pin PCIe power connectors



Demo at Japan AMD/ATI product presentation of a "DX11 future video cards" driving six monitors (@7680x3200) while running a racing game (Colin McRae:DiRT 2).

ATI Eyefinity Introduced

According to AMD, they have produced a truly panoramic visual experience. With AMD's new Radeon 5800 family of GPUs, users can experience a much larger field of view than what was previously available.


ATI Eyefinity is a new technology from AMD that transforms the relationship of the PC and the display. It opens the door to entirely new avenues for home computing and simplifies the deployment of many commercial solutions. In the existing home computing paradigm, one user employs one PC with one workspace spanning one or two monitors.

There are at least three new use models availed or expanded by ATI Eyefinity.

The first model is single-session single-person multi-screen. One user surrounded with many displays creating an immersive reality or information environment. One user can enjoy information or visual simulations or real-time experiences, which were previously possible only with high-end workstations or simulators. Commercial or technical applications include simulation, design and analysis; equities trading, graphic design, intelligence analysis, and more. Consumer applications include gaming, advanced productivity, and impressing your friends.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzGtxlaPQqY

In this video technology demonstration, ATI Eyefinity multi-monitor technology is driving an immersive, panoramic gaming experience. AMD’s Lauren Larose is playing Tom Clancy’s Hawks at an amazing 5760x2400 resolution spanning six monitors employing the Display Port 1.1 interface.

The second model is single-session multi-person multi-screen. Many users enjoying the experience provided by a single computer with the added benefit of multiple-displays. For example, one user enjoying dual monitor productivity, and a second user or group of users enjoying a movie or game on a third or fourth screen. The central premise of this model is that it is a single session, one person is “driving” the visual environment - one keyboard, one mouse - kind of like a PC experience DJ who can launch applications for many to see.

Adding the ability of each screen to have its own I/O and support for a separate user session, you arrive at the third model…