DX 11 Graphics Cards

[LeftEyeNine]

By the well-received arrival of Win 7, DirectX is making its latest turn around the corner with its 11th version.

Yeah, there was another thread inquiring the worthiness of a DX 11-supported video card however I'd like a clean take-off here regarding the new wallet-purgers.

What are out there and how do they perform ? Critics, thoughts, reviews please.

[Husar]

There's only the ATI 5xxx series, the fastest single-chip graphics cards out there but unable to beat the two-chip NVidia solution, a two-chip 5xxx card is on the way though.
One of the bigger problems seems to be that, at least here in Germany, the high-end cards are pretty much nowhere available.
The new Nvidia design is probably due sometime early next year, whether to be excited or not I'm not sure. Usually I like to skip the first generation that supports a new DX version.

[LeftEyeNine]

Some HD 5850 reviews: This, this and this.

They all find it likeable. I guess I'm adding this to my in-months-to-come shopping list.

[Lemur]

Yeah, the AMD/ATI 58XX series is quite enticing. If I could scrape together a half-reasonable excuse for buying one, I would.

[LeftEyeNine]

Yeah, the AMD/ATI 58XX series is quite enticing. If I could scrape together a half-reasonable excuse for buying one, I would.

How about "I'm constantly getting buried under Lemurlings on the couch, I deserve compensation" ?

Pity that a 5850 in Turkey is the same price with a 5870 in USA. HARLey.

[Furunculus]

DX11 is a good move, building upon the codebase cleanup that was DX10.

[Roman_Man#3]

There's only the ATI 5xxx series, the fastest single-chip graphics cards out there but unable to beat the two-chip NVidia solution, a two-chip 5xxx card is on the way though.
One of the bigger problems seems to be that, at least here in Germany, the high-end cards are pretty much nowhere available.
The new Nvidia design is probably due sometime early next year, whether to be excited or not I'm not sure. Usually I like to skip the first generation that supports a new DX version.

The 5970 has already been released, and it trumps the dual-chip nVidia card.

[Lemur]

The 5970 has already been released, and it trumps the dual-chip nVidia card.

I don't think I'd be able to look at myself in the mirror if I ever spent $600+ on a videocard. Even if I were a billionaire, I'd feel slightly foolish.

[Furunculus]

i bought a 9800 GX2 for £346 nearly twenty months ago, never regretted it.

[KukriKhan]

HERE is a video of an AMD demo of DX11 properties. In essence, it moves more electrons more quickly over a given piece of hardware, producing more polygons and therefore, more detail of image rendering.

I worry about heat dissipation. We're gonna need more fans, and smarter airflow dynamics - or safer liquid-cooling tech to go along with these cards. Or else we're gonna see more reports of vid cards melting/frying, and mobo's going bad.

Imagine one of these cards in a notebook's enclosed space. We'll never be able to again call such a machine a "laptop", cuz it'll burn a hole through one's pants.

[LeftEyeNine]

I guess I've just bought the beast alias HD 5870 .

Edit 1: Couldn't resist striking a deal that brought down the usual price down to a level that equals to 60 bucks above an HD 5850.

I wonder if my 500W Thermaltake will be able to feed Core i7 920, 2 GB DDR3 and 4 hard disk drives.

Edit 2: Antec PS Calculator says that such system will approximately consume 414 Watts. I guess the margin is enough for a safety buffer.

[al Roumi]

I wonder if my 500W Thermaltake will be able to feed Core i7 920, 2 GB DDR3 and 4 hard disk drives.

Edit 2: Antec PS Calculator says that such system will approximately consume 414 Watts. I guess the margin is enough for a safety buffer.

Inshallah!

[LeftEyeNine]

Amin !

[Husar]

HERE is a video of an AMD demo of DX11 properties. In essence, it moves more electrons more quickly over a given piece of hardware, producing more polygons and therefore, more detail of image rendering.

I worry about heat dissipation. We're gonna need more fans, and smarter airflow dynamics - or safer liquid-cooling tech to go along with these cards. Or else we're gonna see more reports of vid cards melting/frying, and mobo's going bad.

Imagine one of these cards in a notebook's enclosed space. We'll never be able to again call such a machine a "laptop", cuz it'll burn a hole through one's pants.

IIRC there is a dedicated tesselation processor that multiplies the number of polygons with some algorithm or so. ATI cards have had one for a while but DX11 finally made it useable.

DX 11 doesn't move any electrons faster, afaik it just improves on some algorithms and methods to display things, the new cards also have more processors which can do tasks simultaneously.

the heat dissipation is often countered by producing them in a smaller process like 40nm instead of 65nm or so.
When using a smaller process, less energy is lost, thus less energy escapes in the form of heat.

[CrossLOPER]

I don't think I'd be able to look at myself in the mirror if I ever spent $600+ on a videocard. Even if I were a billionaire, I'd feel slightly foolish.

Right, because you'd be buying three FOR OPTIMAL EXPERIENCE.

Also:

Nvidia: minuscule success rate.
ATI: COVER THE ENTIRE CARD AND HAVE ONLY TWO SMALL FANS ON ONE END.