Gigabyte Radeon HD5870 Super Over Clock

When intense gaming action demands absolute attention, the last thing anybody wants is noise distracting them. Gigabyte's Radeon HD 5870 Super Over Clock delivers top-level graphics performance for DirectX-11 video games with an 950MHz overclocked Cypress-XT GPU, and thanks to twin 80mm cooling fans this GV-R587SO-1GD model keeps noise whisper quiet. Priced at $500, the Gigabyte HD5870 SOC competes directly with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX-480. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the Gigabyte HD5870 SOC against some of the most powerful video cards on the market.

It used to be that PC video games such as Crysis and Far Cry 2 were as demanding as you could get, but that was all back before DirectX-11 brought tessellation and DirectCompute to the forefront of graphics. DX11 now adds heavy particle and turbulence effects to video games, and titles such as Metro 2033 demand the most powerful graphics processing available. ATI's Cypress GPU is AMD's first graphics processor to support DirectX-11 features such as tessellation, and the Gigabyte Radeon HD5870 SOC offers an excellent combination of performance and value for PC gamers.

Gigabyte Radeon HD 5870 Super Over Clock GV-R587SO-1GD

Modeled on the full DirectX-11 specification, the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cards delivers up to 2.72 TeraFLOPS of compute power in a single card, translating to superior performance in the latest DirectX 11 games, as well as in DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL titles in single card configurations or multi-card configurations using ATI CrossFireX technology. Benchmark Reviews tests graphics frame rate performance of the Gigabyte Radeon HD 5870 Super Over Clock video card using several of the most demanding PC video game titles and benchmark software available. Some old DirectX-10 favorites such as Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2, Resident Evil 5, as well as PCMark Vantage are all included. New to the scene are Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Metro 2033, BattleForge, and the recently announced Unigine Heaven 2.0 benchmark.

AMD originally launched the Radeon 5870 as their first assault on their multi-monitor ATI Eyefinity Technology feature, using native HDMI 1.3 output paired with DisplayPort connectivity. The Cypress GPU features the latest ATI Stream Technology, which is designed to utilize DirectCompute 5.0 and OpenCL code. These new features improve all graphical aspects of the end-user experience, such as faster multimedia transcode times and better GPGPU compute performance. AMD has already introduced the ATI Stream SDK v2.1 to help positions developers with AMD Fusion APUs, and the recent Open Physics Initiative with Pixelux promises to offer physics middleware built around OpenCL and Bullet Physics.

So far, 2010 has been an exciting year for game developers. Microsoft Windows 7 (and updated Windows Vista) Operating Systems introduced gamers to DirectX-11, allowing video games released for the PC platform to look better than ever. DirectX-11 is the leap in video game software development we've been waiting for. Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) is given emphasis in DX11, allowing some of the most detailed computer textures gamers have ever seen. Realistic cracks in mud with definable depth and splintered tree bark make the game more realistic, but they also make new demands on the graphics hardware. This new level of graphical detail requires a new level of computer hardware: DX11-compliant hardware. Tessellation adds a tremendous level of strain on the GPU, making previous graphics hardware virtually obsolete with new DX11 game titles.

About Gigabyte United Inc. (G.B.T. Inc. USA)

Gigabyte United Inc., established in December 2006, is assuming the Gigabyte TECHNOLOGY Co., Ltd. Brand, which for the past 20 years has been a world-renowned leader in the motherboard industry. Continuing to focus on its core businesses of Gigabyte branded motherboards and graphics cards, Gigabyte United Inc. is committed to providing our valued customers with the highest quality products and services featuring the industry's most innovative design.

In order to meet the challenges of today's intensely competitive channel market, Gigabyte United Inc. fully utilizes its key assets including its cutting-edge research and development team as well as its professional sales and marketing resources to continue to develop technologies to fit a complete range of digital life solutions. Now and for the future, Gigabyte United Inc. will continue to embody the unique spirit and culture, which has made Gigabyte one of the foremost brands in the industry.

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