The GeForce GTX 480 got an incredible amount of criticism when it first came out. To be honest, I think a lot of people were just letting off steam at NVIDIA for taking so long! The three biggest concerns were: an architecture that wasn't optimized for gaming, power consumption, and its evil twin - heat. A short while after the release date, Benchmark Reviews started seeing new cards that consumed less power and weren't so toasty. Now, at the twilight of the product life for the GTX 480, a few vendors have attempted to put those problems completely to rest. The Gigabyte GV-N480SO-15I GeForce GTX 480 Super Over Clock is one of the best examples of that effort, and it represents what the GTX 480 could have and should have been at its launch. There are a ton of benchmarks out there for the reference GTX 480 already, but let's dig a little deeper and take a complete look, inside and out, at Gigabyte's premium GTX 480 video card.

With the introduction of AMD's Cayman GPU, the Radeon HD 6870 video card becomes their flagship DirectX-11 desktop video card. Gamers can expect the PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 to quench their thirst for demanding graphics power while introducing several new MSAA modes such as Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing (EQAA). The PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 features enhanced DirectX 11 tessellation effects, while still producing top-end frame rates to help gamers build their killstreak. In addition to a new VLIW4 shader core architecture, the Cayman GPU also offers accelerated multimedia playback and transcoding, AMD HD3D stereoscopic technology, and the 3D Blu-ray multi-view CODEC (MVC). In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests graphical frame rate performance of the PowerColor AX6970 2GBD5-M2DH using the most demanding PC video game titles and benchmark software available.

With the introduction of AMD's Cayman GPU, the Radeon HD 6870 video card becomes their flagship DirectX-11 desktop video card. Gamers can expect the Radeon HD 6970 to quench their thirst for demanding graphics power while introducing several new MSAA modes such as Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing (EQAA). The AMD Radeon HD 6970 features enhanced DirectX 11 tessellation effects, while still producing top-end frame rates to help gamers build their killstreak. In addition to a new VLIW4 shader core architecture, the Cayman GPU also offers accelerated multimedia playback and transcoding, AMD HD3D stereoscopic technology, and the 3D Blu-ray multi-view CODEC (MVC). In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests graphical frame rate performance of the Radeon HD 6970 using the most demanding PC video game titles and benchmark software available.

Fierce competition between GPU manufacturers has allowed PC gamers to enjoy the best graphics hardware ever developed for computers. NVIDIA continues to update their desktop video card product family, and now offers the 480-core GeForce GTX 570 video card. Build from the same GF110 GPU that powers the industry-leading GTX 580 series, 15 Streaming Multiprocessors clocked to 732 MHz is comprised of 60 Texture Units and 40 ROP Units while 1280MB of GDDR5 video frame buffer promises 152 GB/s bandwidth over a 320-bit memory bus. NVIDIA replaces their aging GeForce GTX 480 with freshly updated and refined technology, saving consumers money in the process. Priced at $350 for launch, Benchmark Reviews tests the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 performance against other graphics options using some of the latest DirectX 11 games available to see how well it compares against the competition.

ASUS is a well-known innovator of technology, but there are times when they recognize a good idea and strive to simply make it better. Queue the GeForce GTX 580 video card. Armed with the maximum number of CUDA cores and PolyMorph engines NVIDIA can deliver with the Fermi architecture, the GeForce GTX 580 represents their trophy effort to seize the performance market. While being similar to the GeForce GTX 480, the GeForce GTX 580 design updates the Fermi formula, improves upon the power appetite, reduces heat output, and increases graphical frame rate performance. ASUS raises the GF110 fixed function clock speed from 772 MHz to 782, while the graphics cores now operate at 1564 MHz. 1536MB of GDDR5 video frame buffer use a familiar 384-bit memory bus, clocked to 1002MHz for a 4008MHz data rate. This is before ASUS Voltage Tweak gives us access to unlocked potential...

A lot has been happening lately in the world of video cards. AMD just released the Radeon HD 6870 and NVIDIA replied with the GTX 580. But with the holiday season approaching, some might be contemplating a gift that's just a little less heavy on the wallet. Benchmark Reviews has gotten our hands on a factory overclocked mid-range video card that claims to be 17 degrees cooler than it's reference design. In this article, we'll take a look at the MSI N450GTS Cyclone 1GD5/OC GTS 450 video card and see if it can back up it's claim. We'll be testing it against a Radeon HD 5770 that's costs almost exactly the same price.

Everyone who waited for NVIDIA to launch their Fermi graphics architecture felt like they had held back once it was finally released. The GF100 graphics processor that was packaged into the GTX 480 used less than its full potential, and it didn't create the wide performance margin everyone expected between competitors. Seven months later, NVIDIA has returned with their updated Fermi GF110 GPU, delivering all 512 CUDA cores in the GeForce GTX 580. Featuring a tweaked graphics processor that runs much cooler and uses less power than the GTX 480, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 is tested by Benchmark Reviews against the Radeon 5970 and CrossFire 6870 video cards, along with two overclocked GeForce GTX 460's in SLI, using the latest DirectX-11 video games.

AMD's first video card in the new HD 6xxx series occupies a brand new position in their video card product hierarchy. The Cypress chip, as used on the Radeon HD 5830 with 334 square millimeters of silicon, was way too big for just 1120 shaders and 16 ROPS. The new Barts GPU uses just 255 mm2 to do the same job only better, with twice the number of ROPs. Although AMD was denied the opportunity to roll out 32nm-based chips for this product cycle, they went back to the drawing board and optimized this new generation of GPUs for the current 40nm manufacturing process at TSMC. AMD did a better job of interpreting the rule book last time out, and their full line of 40nm GPUs stayed out in front for a full 6 months. AMD has successfully introduced an addition class of GPU (as defined by die size), to fill the performance gap that existed within the 5xxx series. You may have seen some benchmarks already, but please follow along with Benchmark Reviews as we take a complete look, inside and out, at the MSI R6870-2PM2D1GD5 graphics card.