Microsoft Windows 7 will deliver DirectX 11 visual quality like never seen before, and ATI has endowed gamers with an unparalleled graphics solution in the Radeon HD 5870. While the Radeon 5800-series is a monumental feat for AMD over the unprepared competition, not everyone can fit the absolute best video card available into their budget. Armed with 1440 shader cores, the 40nm Cypress GPU HD5850 is positioned to offer an excellent value for the upper mid-range and hits the sweet-spot for DirectX 11 gamers. In this article, Benchmark Reviews compares the Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 video card, model 21162-00-50R, against a cross-section of modern graphics accelerators.

AMD has leap-frogged NVIDIA by launching the DirectX 11 compatible Radeon HD 5870 video card. Armed with 1600 shader cores, the 40nm Cypress GPU claims to push video game frame rates well-beyond what NVIDIA offers from their GeForce GTX 285 counterpart. While the list of DirectX 11 video games has just started to grow, with one of the first being a free Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) named Battle Forge. Perhaps ATI has created the perfect storm for their Radeon HD 5800-series by offering a price-competitive graphics card with several free games included or available. While NVIDIA toils away with CUDA and PhysX, ATI is busy delivering the next generation of hardware for the gaming community to enjoy. In this article, Benchmark Reviews compares the Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 video card, model 21161-00-50R, against a cross-section of modern graphics accelerators.

Coming right on the heels of the HD5800 series launch, ATI brings us another batch of cards based on class-leading 40nm GPUs and GDDR5 memory. The new cards, Radeon HD5770 and HD5750, use the same architecture as the new HD5800 series, but ATI basically cut the Cypress chip in half to create a brand new video card with hardware specs somewhere between an HD4870 and an HD4890. If you're thinking that's not a bad place to be, but want to see some proof of how the HD5770 performs, Benchmark Reviews is pleased to offer you the results of our extensive testing.

It's OK to arrive fashionably late to a party, as long as you have something to add. ASUS has been offering their MATRIX branded video cards to the public well after the initial buzz has died down, for each GPU launch. The 9800GT and 4870 MATRIXcards were released in 2008, followed by the GTX260 MATRIX in early 2009. ASUS now releases the GTX285 MATRIX featuring the fastest single GPU available, supplied by NVIDIA. Benchmark Reviews looked at the ASUS ENGTX285 TOP back in January, which drew heavily from the NVIDIA reference design. Let's take a closer look at how they've stretched the limits on their latest offering, which is anything BUT a standard design.

The graphics card market is pretty much a two man slugfest at the moment. ATI and NVIDIA trade blows at irregular intervals in a brutal game of strategy. The GeForce GTX 275 was a punch that NVIDIA held in reserve, just waiting for ATI to release their HD4890 card. When launch day came for ATI, lo and behold, NVIDIA had the GTX 275 up their sleeve, ready for production. Essentially, the GTX 275 combines the GPU of the GTX 285 with the memory architecture of the GTX 260 with performance and pricing that neatly slots between the two.

MSI is an established player in the graphics card market, and their take on the GTX 275 pulls no punches. They put together a unique design, featuring twin PWM fans and a 5-heatpipe cooler, for their N275GTX Twin Frozr OC Edition, and one look should tell you that they are serious about performance. Benchmark Reviews is pleased to offer you a detailed, fact-filled look at one of the products at the heart of the sweet spot for gaming graphics.

Home Theater Personal Computers have been on the rise in recent years but most HTPC cases have a major flaw that makes them inherently tricky to deal with, their size. Some say size doesn't matter, well that may be true for some things in life but when it comes to HTPC's, if it's small it means limited air flow and thus it's cooling capabilities are limited. It also means that you just can't fit a very powerful video card inside of it. Even if you could, a bigger video card means more heat and we all know that heat is the number one enemy of all your computer components. So what if there was such a video card that would not only fit inside of a small form factor HTPC case but one that can perform well enough to meet the demands an HTPC requires all the while keeping it's cool? Sounds impossible? Maybe or maybe not. Here at Benchmark Reviews, you will find a lot of high end video card reviews just like many other review websites but not everyone is looking for a high end video card. Benchmark Reviews tests the ASUS EN9400GT GeForce 9400GT HDMI video card and puts it through a battery of frame rate tests to see just how well the 9400 GT performs and whether or not it can live up to the requirements of living inside of a HTPC case.

Sapphire has four ranges for most top-end products they offer: standard, Vapor-X, Toxic, and Atomic. While each is different in its own right, for most gamers it is the Toxic design that draws the most attention. Combining the Vapor-X cooling with overclocks seen on the Atomic, the Toxic brand is the most elite air-cooled video card Sapphire offers. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the performance on the Sapphire HD4890 Toxic Vapor-X 11150-01-40R video card against many of the other best graphics accelerator solutions in the price segment. FPS tests compare frame rates between low to high-end video cards, including a pair of CrossFireX Radeon HD 4770's.

The breakneck pace of product development for graphics cards doesn't always generate bigger, faster, more powerful chips and cards. Sometimes a new product gets developed and introduced to the market that isn't a barn burner. Such is the case with this GTX260-based video card, the ASUS ENGTX260 Matrix. That doesn't mean it isn't a worthwhile product, or isn't worth the attention of Benchmark Reviews. Instead, it's usually a more focused design that is aimed at a tighter target market. As if the high end PC graphics card market isn't tight enough, ASUS has carved out a niche in their product line called Matrix, and adopted it into their Republic of Gamers.

The hallmarks of the Matrix range so far are enhanced cooling capacity, improved configurability, and unique visual designs. The 9800GT and HD4870 cards that were released in 2008 have a new sibling, the ENGTX260 Matrix, and there is clearly a family resemblance. This isn't the first GTX260 video card that Benchmark Reviews has tested, but let's see what's different about this one.