New specs for HD 5870 & 5850

[jennyh]

Scariest comment on that anand link was that dirt2 was 'definitely playable' dx11 on 6 screens.

 

[Andraxxus]

I was searching for the article in which I saw a resolution(I think in Dirt2) of 17000x8000(no mistake here)
I dont remember the exact resolution and then i found this:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/09/09/amd_next_generation_ati_radeon_eyefinity_technology
Scroll to the last pictures.All I can say is OMFG!

 

[jennyh]

Wow...AMD are sitting on something very special here.

 

[Kithzaru]

It will be nice to see the bench's when these come out. It will also be nice to see the Nvidia reply.

 

[dndhatcher]

Its not really playing at 7680x3200. Its just running six 30 inch monitors at 2560x1600 at the same time. Its a nice solution to the problems facing larger LCDs. Be nice if HDTV would go this way also.

 

[invisik]

"Dirt 2 DX11 title yet-to-be released running at 7680x3200 resolution. This game was very playable on our multi-monitor setup."

How is that possible? Sure its one powerful card but to run it at such a high resolution?

 

[dndhatcher]

I wonder if they experience "tearing problems" (other than the obvious monitor edge issue).

 

[OvrClkr]

"Dirt 2 DX11 title yet-to-be released running at 7680x3200 resolution. This game was very playable on our multi-monitor setup."

How is that possible? Sure its one powerful card but to run it at such a high resolution?

If a card does not support that resolution then how did they get to that conclusion?

 

[jennyh]

If a card does not support that resolution then how did they get to that conclusion?

That's a good point.

This 5870 is capable of running 7680x3200. I would say that is probably the maximum res of the card, if it was higher then they'd probably have shown it higher.

 

[dndhatcher]

If a card does not support that resolution then how did they get to that conclusion?

This 5870 is capable of running 7680x3200. I would say that is probably the maximum res of the card, if it was higher then they'd probably have shown it higher.

No, its not.

Its not really playing at 7680x3200. Its just running six 30 inch monitors at 2560x1600 at the same time. Its a nice solution to the problems facing larger LCDs. Be nice if HDTV would go this way also.

*sigh* no one listens to me.
They also demoed a 4 cards in one PC running a grid of 24 30 inch monitors so that was a fake resolution of "15360x6400". It doesn't mean the card can handle a single monitor of that resolution.

 

[OvrClkr]

hehe...... well that is totally different....

 

[jennyh]

The reason nobody listens to you dnd is because you're talking crap.

Did you look at the screenshots at all? It is 6 screens of continuous vista, not 6 screens of the same thing.

It *is* 7680x3200. Did you miss the part when they said each screen was a 30" dell capable of 2560x1600.

"Wanna see what 24.5 million pixels looks like?"

 

[soundefx]

I can't wait for the 5800 and the 300 battle to officially begin.

I am hurting with my 3870.

 

[Kari]

I'd say it really is 7680x3200, now I wanna know how thin are those 'ultra thin' bezels going to be lol


edit - each port is running it's own monitor at normal 30'' res, but the drivers mask it so it looks like one huge screen to windows and the game itself

 

[dndhatcher]

The reason nobody listens to you dnd is because you're talking crap.

Did you look at the screenshots at all? It is 6 screens of continuous vista, not 6 screens of the same thing.

It *is* 7680x3200. Did you miss the part when they said each screen was a 30" dell capable of 2560x1600.

"Wanna see what 24.5 million pixels looks like?"

You didnt even read my entire 3 sentence post. Probably wasting keystrokkes typing this but you missed the bigger picture. Apparently You didnt see nearly all the screen shots I did.

They also demoed a 4 cards in one PC running a grid of 24 30 inch monitors so that was a fake resolution of "15360x6400". It doesn't mean the card can handle a single monitor of that resolution.

Your statement that the cards limit is "7680x3200 is obviously flat out wrong since that is a 15360x6400 picture. Running 24 different monitors at 2560x1600 does not mean the card is capable of 15360x6400 resolution.

The new technology is the virtualization of the screen. You can adjust the monitors to lay out in different formations including at least 3, 4, 6, 12 and 24 monitor configurations. The fact is the GPU never deals with a single image of the resolution you are talking about. Its simultaneously handling a bunch of smaller images. It could have an actual pixel limit of 4x3 and still draw those images if it could virtualize partial screens and throw those small data bits out fast enough.

 

[jennyh]

Hatcher, you are arguing semantics.

Nobody would need one continuous screen that was 7680x3200 if multiple smaller screens give the same illusion.

What you're not getting is that the number or size of screens used isn't really important. The end product is 7680 unique pixels wide and 3200 unique pixels deep, that is what counts.

 

[dndhatcher]

I have some questions for you you Jenny.

If you can stack the 6 monitors in a 2x3 instead of 3x2 or even a 6x1 configuration, what is the max resolution of the card? The cards max resolution cant change just because of how you decide to stack the monitors.

What about the first set of cards to come out that will only be capable of handling 3 monitors. What is the max resolution of that card?

Now do you see why I think the semantics are important. Did you buy a triple 2560x1920 card, a quad 2560x1920 card or a sextuple 2560x1920 card . Its flexible. You cant define the resolution as a single rectangle anymore.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Hatcher, you are arguing semantics.

Nobody would need one continuous screen that was 7680x3200 if multiple smaller screens give the same illusion.

What you're not getting is that the number or size of screens used isn't really important. The end product is 7680 unique pixels wide and 3200 unique pixels deep, that is what counts.

I'm more interested in how they have connected and linked the screens, but only six? I did nine with a crappy laptop!

 

[jennyh]

Ok I understand what you are getting at.

You are right in what you are saying, but it is an argument over semantics. I feel that it isn't right to have this amazing piece of technology downplayed over semantics.

In raw gpu processing power terms, this 5870 is light years ahead of what we currently have on a single gpu, and ATI have suddenly made people think 'wait a minute...now we're talking about real VR etc'.

While everyone would love a single continuous 1 gigapixel wide by .5 gigapixel deep display, I think we all know that mulitple smaller displays are much more likely and feasible. Perhaps the resolutions that we know are on the way out too, who knows.

 

[jennyh]

@mouse, that's pretty cool yes but how many pixels wide and deep?

And most importantly...does it run Crysis? 😀

 

[Mousemonkey]

@mouse, that's pretty cool yes but how many pixels wide and deep?

And most importantly...does it run Crysis? 😀

A game of freecell caused it to have a crysis which is about as close as it could get!, off the top of my head I can't remember the exact res but that's not the point. I'm not disputing the power of the card but I don't recall it having six outputs, so how are those screens daisy chained? and can any old screens be used or would you have to use 'special' ones at whatever the maker wants to charge for them.

 

[impaledmango]

so... 2 5870x2 in crossfire would be equal to 8 4870s?!?!?!?! That's freaking crazy!

 

[dndhatcher]

In raw gpu processing power terms, this 5870 is light years ahead of what we currently have on a single gpu

Now you are just talking from giddyness over a new toy.

What few released benchmarchs there are have it at around as fast as a 295 or a 4870x2. Hardly "light years" in terms of power. The screen virtualization technology is slick, but not really all that revolutionary.

Hopefully tesselation multiplies the gains from the extra GPU speed. Playing WOW at 80FPS at 7680x3200 really didnt show us what might be once software catches up. I saw no demonstration of FPS increase going from DX10 triangles to DX11 "tessagons" (I made that word up). Its that undemonstrated technology that has the most potential for improving gameplay.

 

[jennyh]

"Eventually someone looked at all of the outputs and realized that without too much effort you could drive six displays off of a single card - you just needed more display engines on the chip. AMD's DX11 GPU family does just that."

So instead of 2, the 5x series have 6. I would be very surprised to see the G300 with 6 too. Very surprised.

"The software layer makes it all seamless. The displays appear independent until you turn on SLS mode (Single Large Surface). When on, they'll appear to Windows and its applications as one large, high resolution display. There's no multimonitor mess to deal with, it just works. This is the way to do multi-monitor, both for work and games."

That was taken from anand's preview.

So I'm guessing 1 dvi cable from the graphics card splitting into 6, with software doing the rest.

 

[jennyh]

Now you are just talking from giddyness over a new toy.

What few released benchmarchs there are have it at around as fast as a 295 or a 4870x2. Hardly "light years" in terms of power. The screen virtualization technology is slick, but not really all that revolutionary.

Hopefully tesselation multiplies the gains from the extra GPU speed. Playing WOW at 80FPS at 7680x3200 really didnt show us what might be once software catches up. I saw no demonstration of FPS increase going from DX10 triangles to DX11 "tessagons" (I made that word up). Its that undemonstrated technology that has the most potential for improving gameplay.

It's not revolutionary to drive 6 screens off 1 gpu? I think it is.

I agree with you, it's the stuff we haven't seen yet that is gonna blow us away most. The reason this multi display stuff is so exciting is, *nobody* saw it coming.