AMD Radeon HD 6790 1GB Video Card Review

The AMD Radeon HD 6790 Graphics Card

Tonight AMD is releasing another new video card called the Radeon HD 6790. This video card shouldn't come as too much of a surprise as they were made available on the retail market before the card officially announced by AMD. The AMD Radeon HD 6790 isn't a revolutionary change, but it is more of an evolutionary change. What do we mean by that? Well, the AMD Radeon HD 6790 is nothing more than a 40nm Barts core that has some things disabled and the clock speeds adjusted. Remember when AMD announced the AMD Radeon HD 5870 and Radeon HD 5850 graphics cards back in 2009 and then followed both of those up with a Radeon HD 5830? That card used same PCB that the Radeon HD 5870 used, but had more stream processors (ALU's) disabled that either the Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 5870. It made up for the disabled stream processors by having a higher clock speed than the Radeon HD 5850, which meant it also consumed more power. It was a very strange card, but it worked and fit in the Radeon HD 5800 series as it used a "Cypress" core. Think of the AMD Radeon HD 6790 as a Radeon HD 6830.

Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 Toxic Video Card Review

Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 Toxic Video Card Introduction

Today we are going to be taking a look at the Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 Toxic Video Card. This is the factory overclocked version of the Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 video card. This particular card does not contain Sapphire's Vapor X cooler and is based on the reference PCB that is familiar to the 6800 series of AMD's Radeon HD cards. Much like several other cards that are in this same class the Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 Toxic Video Card is a 3D capable card that features the AMD HD3D technology. 

Now, don't get disappointed; it has other AMD technologies too. Eyefinity is in there; it is crossfire capable should you wish to run more than one card for a little extra performance boost. I do have to let you know that just like the rest of the 6800 series you will only be able to hook up one other card in a crossfire configuration, so triple and quad crossfire setups are, unfortunately, not possible with this card.

HIS Radeon HD 6850 IceQ X Turbo 1GB Video Card Review

HIS Radeon HD 6850 Turbo Video Card

Today we are going to take a look at an AMD based video card that not only provides a ton of power, but it also includes a cooling system to help tame the high temperatures that go along with high speed graphics. Of course I am talking about the HIS (Hightech Information Systems) Radeon HD 6850 Turbo video card (H685QNT1GD), that just happens to include their very effective IceQ X cooling system to help cool off the 820MHz clocked GPU and the 4400Mhz clocked memory. Of course you are all asking, "Does it have all of the features and bells and whistles that we have come to love in an AMD based video card?" To put it simply... yes.

If you want to be immersed in your games Eyefinity is there for you. All you need to do is hook up your three monitors and bam; now you have peripheral vision. Want to play your games or watch Blu-Ray Discs in full stereo 3D? Eyedefinition with HD3D has your back. You can also speed up applications and enjoy brilliant video with AMD Eyespeed technology. Did I mention 3D capability? Ok so I will say it again with AMD HD3D you can now game and watch movies in full 3D, and all with the Direct X 11 compatibility that we all love. Oh, hey, I almost forgot to mention Crossfire; yep... it's in there, but unfortunately just like all of its 6800 series brethren you can only add one other card thus being able to have a dual card set up.

ASUS GeForce GTX 590 3GB Video Card Review

We all knew that NVIDIA had been working on putting two Fermi GPUs on a single graphics card for some time and, to be honest, it has to be tough to put that much GPU on a single card. NVIDIA found a way to take over 2200 components and get them assembled together on a single PCB to create their new flagship GPU called the GeForce GTX 590. The GTX 590 combines the power of two GF110 GPUs, the same GPUs used on the GeForce GTX 580, on a single graphics card. With a total of two GF110 GPUs packing 1024 CUDA cores and 3GB of GDDR5 memory you know this card isn't going to be cheap. The suggested retail price of the GeForce GTX 590 is $699.99, but for that you will get the ultimate GeForce GTX gaming experience and the ability to run Quad-SLI on just two cards.

MSI N550GTX-Ti Cyclone II OC Video Card Review

MSI N550GTX-Ti Cyclone II OC Graphics Card

Earlier this week we took a look at the ASUS Ultimate ENGTX550 Ti video card and today we are taking a look at a competing card by MSI. MSI is no stranger to the video card market and have been pushing hard into the North American channel by pushing their 'Military Class' components, custom GPU coolers, Afterburner overclocking utility and some very nice factory overclocks to persuade consumers to pick their video cards over another brand . With the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti series the engineers at MSI went developed two different cards. One card features the Cyclone II GPU cooler and the other features a GPU cooler that is based primarily off the NVIDIA reference design. MSI is only releasing the two overclocked versions in North America, so we could only find out pricing on those cards. As you'll see from the list below the Cyclone II cooler carries a $5 price premium over the NVIDIA reference designed cooler and custom red/black fan shroud.

The card that we are looking at today is the N550GTX-Ti Cyclone II 1GD5/OC video card! This card is factory overclocked up to 950MHz and features a custom GPU cooler, called the Cyclone II, that helps keep temperatures in-touch with reality.

ASUS Ultimate GeForce GTX 550 Ti Video Card Review

The ASUS Ultimate GeForce GTX550-Ti

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti graphics card is going to be a popular gaming graphics card in 2011 due to it's lucrative $150 price point. When the GeForce GTX 550 Ti was launched last week we noticed that ASUS came out of the gate with not one, but three cards for this series. ASUS once again custom designed all of the ENGTX550 Ti cards and fitted each of them with their DirectCU cooler for lower noise and GPU temperatures.

The card that we are looking at today is the ASUS UL ENGTX550 Ti DirectCU DC/DI/1GD5 video card! This card is also known as the ASUS Ultimate GTX550 Ti and with a core clock of 1015MHz it is the fastest clocked card that the companies offers for this series. This card is clocked 115MHz faster than the NVIDIA reference design as it runs at 900MHz on the core. For those that like numbers, this means that this card has a core clock that is 13% faster than the NVIDIA reference design! The ASUS card costs $20 more, which also happens to be a 13% difference. So, here is one of those rare situations where you pay for what you get!

AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB Dual GPU Video Card Review

Antilles Arrives with 2 GPUs and 4GB of GDDR5

If you have been waiting for the dual-GPU monster from AMD called Antilles, you can finally jump for joy as the Radeon HD 6990 4GB video card has officially been released. This video card has been at the center talked about openly by AMD for nearly half a year now, so to see it out in the wild is a relief. AMD should be relieved too as this is their first Dual-GPU video card that they have launched since the Radeon HD 5970 was released back in 2009. They also managed to get it out the door before the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 comes to market, which is always good.

AMD sent us the Radeon HD 6990 4GB video card in a silver briefcase that had a rather large advertisement for Dragon Age II on the cover, but sadly the game was no where to be found. Inside the briefcase up we found more marketing material that said, "Rise to power with the AMD Radeon HD 6990, the fastest graphics card in the world". Below the sign we found the foot long behemoth and no we aren't talking about a Subway Footlong sandwich! This isn't a $5 Subway Footlong though as this is a flagship video card that comes with a hefty price tag of $699. A Radeon HD 6970 can be had for $319.99 after rebate, which is interesting as this video card uses the same GPU cores.

XFX Radeon HD 6850 Black Edition Video Card Review

XFX Radeon HD 6850 Video Card

Today here in the LR labs we are going to be taking a look at some new technology and a bit of older technology. Back in 2009 ATI/AMD released the Radeon HD 5770 video card for around $159.99. More recently AMD released the 6800 series video cards that included the Radeon HD 6850 which, by coincidence or not, can be had for around $159.99 after rebates for the standard version with a 775 MHz core speed and a 1000 MHz Memory speed. For about $20 more you can get the Black Edition which is slightly overclocked at 820 MHz Core and 1200 MHz Memory speed, at least that's what mine came clocked with. So now the question stands, "how far have we come over the last year in the $160.00 price point for an AMD Radeon 6850?"

As we all know, AMD was primarily a CPU and chip set maker up until its acquisition of ATI a few years back. AMD made the decision last year to start to eliminate the ATI name from its flagship products such as the Radeon HD video card line. Today we are going to be taking a look at both of these cards to see just how much has changed since the 5770's came out in October of 2009.

AXLE GeForce GT 430 1GB Video Card Review

With their headquarters in Hong Kong, AXLE is well known in the Asia Pacific region and they have distributors all across the world in many countries such as Germany and Malaysia, to name a couple. They are not very known in North America but are really trying to change that.

ASUS GeForce ENGTX560 Ti DirectCU II Video Card Review

The ASUS GeForce GTX560 DirectCU II

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card is without a doubt one of the best all around gaming graphics cards on the market today. In our GeForce GTX560 Ti launch article we showed you how the NVIDIA reference designed card did and today we are taking a look at our very first custom designed GTX560, the ASUS GeForce GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP video card!

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti Versus AMD Radeon HD 6950 1GB

NVIDIA Brings Titanium Back!

This morning the video card market got a little more crowded as NVIDIA announced the GeForce GTX 560 Ti and AMD released a variant of the Radeon HD 6950 with 1GB of memory on it. Over the past week we've had a chance to test both of these cards that are aimed at the gamer that has around $250 to spend.

If you have been a gamer for many years you might remember the GeForce 4 Ti video card series from yesteryear and it looks like NVIDIA has gone ahead and resurrected the Ti moniker for the GeForce GTX 560 series. Ti stands for Titanium and it better mean that the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is going to destroy AMD's offerings as the Ti was last used when NVIDIA dominated AMD's lineup.