Video cards have progressed considerably over the years. The need for heavy GPU intensive applications has never been greater than now. Technology such as multi-screen configurations, true high definition and high performance gaming appear to be almost standard from any reasonably new PC today.

AMD vs NVIDIA

For years, AMD has been attempting to gain market share from Intel in the CPU market. In 2006 AMD purchased ATI which allowed the processor giant to have market share in both the CPU and GPU markets. ATI have also been in the shadows of the graphics processor giant Nvidia. The joint venture of ATI and AMD was initially looked as a negative move by AMD as both companies had struggled in the past with various issues (most of which appear to be resolved). ATI have recently announced their flagship graphics card which claims to currently be the fastest in the world. The HD6990 card runs  at 830Mhz and with 4GB of DDR5 RAM (Thats right ! 4GB of DDR 5 RAM ). Specifications of the new XFX HD 6990 graphics card are as follows :

• 4 GB High Speed GDDR5 memory
• PCI Express 2.1 x16 bus interface
• AMD “Eye-Definition” graphics
  • Full Microsoft DirectX® 11 support
  • Scalable geometry processing technology
  • Shader Model 5.0Direct
  • Compute 11 support
  • Dual advanced programmable hardware tessellation units
  • Accelerated multi-threading
  • HDR texture compressionOrder-independent transparency
  • OpenGL 4.1 support
  • Up to 24x multi-sample and super-sample anti-aliasing modes
  • Adaptive anti-aliasing
  • Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing (EQAA)
  • Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA)
  • 16x angle independent anisotropic texture filtering
  • 128-bit floating point HDR rendering
• AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology1
• AMD EyeSpeed visual acceleration2
• AMD HD3D technology5
  • Stereoscopic 3D display/glasses support
  • Blu-ray 3D supportStereoscopic 3D gaming3rd party
  • Stereoscopic 3D middleware software support
• AMD CrossFire X™ multi-GPU (dual card) technology
• DisplayPort 1.2
• HDMI 1.4a with Stereoscopic 3D Frame Packing Format, Deep Color, xvYCC wide gamut support, and high bit-rate audio
• Dual-link DVI with HDCP
• Integrated HD audio controller
• AMD PowerPlay™ power management technology3
• AMD Catalyst™ graphics and HD video configuration software

Nvidia however has also produced an excellent flagship graphics card. The nVidia GTX580 provides an excellent solution as a single card or in multi card SLI mode. Although the GTX580 provides only 1.5GB of onboard DDR5 RAM, this card does run very efficiently. Back in November, the GTX580 was labeled as the fastest single GPU  graphics card on the market. Even though the GTX 580 runs at a lower clock speed than the ATI (797Mhz vs 830Mhz for the ATI), this card typically runs a little hotter. Below are the specifications of the Leadtek GTX580 :

Leadtek PCIe GTX580 1536MB GPU Clk: 772MHz, Shader Clk: 1544MHz
CUDA Cores: 512, SLI Capable: 4 Way
Outputs: 2 x DVI-DL, Mini HDMI
Memory: 1536MB DDR5
384bit @ 4008MHz (192.4 GB/s)
PCB: PCIEx16, ATX, Dual Slot Fansink
Dimensions: 266.7(L) x 111.15(H) mm
PSU Req: 600W (1 x 6pin, 1 x 8pin)
Includes: DVI-VGA (1)
Game Bundle: None
DirectX 11.0, OpenGL 4.1

In summary, both these graphics cards will provide an excellent solution for graphics or serious gaming. These best card for your purpose will vary based on single or SLI/crossfire configuration. Combined with a reasonable multi core desktop processor such as the quad core i5 or the i7 and 4 to 8GB of high speed DDR 3 RAM, most applications and games should run relatively smooth.

Pricing on these cards will vary as availability at the time of this article was limited. Current pricing is as follows :

Leadtek nVidia GTX580 1.5GB........$599*

XFX Radeon HD6990 4GB..............$945*

Please be advised pricing is subject to change without notice. Please call Technologic Systems on (03) 90 165 165  or email : sales@technologic.com.au if you would like current pricing and availability on one or more of these cards to be reserved or shipped.

__________________________________________________________

Technologic Systems - (03) 90 165 165