PowerColor Getting Innovative This Computex

[btarunr]

While AMD has no new GPU product launches slated for this year's Computex event, its partners are letting their imagination go places. PowerColor is doing just that, with as many as five new products and technologies. To begin with, the company is working on the PowerColor HD 5770 Sniper Edition. This graphics card packs a Bigfoot Killer NIC on-board, so graphics and network processing is packaged into a single addon card. From what we can tell, the card is designed using a PCI-Express bridge which is connected to the PCI-Express x16 interface, which gives the Radeon HD 5770 GPU an x16 link and the Killer SoC an x1 link. The Killer network processor has its own dedicated memory and ROM, with which the SoC can offload network processing from Windows, in a bid to reduce latencies, even if improving performance is inconsequential with today's systems with powerful processors.

Next up, is the PowerColor HD 5770 Evolution. Again, another novelty graphics card based on the Radeon HD 5770. This one packs a Lucid Hydra Engine chip on-board, which allows it work in tandem with any other graphics card, ATI or NVIDIA, with 2-way or 3-way multi-GPU support. Third card is probably what will interest a lot more buyers, PowerColor HD 5770 Single Slot Edition. As the name suggests, the card will occupy only one expansion slot. The next card is an even more practical product in the making, a series of low-profile Radeon HD 5770 and HD 5750 cards. Lastly, PowerColor will demonstrate what it calls the Vortex Cooling technology, a unique video card cooler which allows users to adjust the fan's height from the heatsink, and vector its air-flow. Not wanting to reveal too much, PowerColor left us with tiny images, some of which are outlines of the actual images.

[Delta6326]

sounds very interesting having a big foot inside hopefully temps don't rise but i don't see why they would

[Cheeseball]

YES! Low-profile single-slot HD 5770! Just what the doctor ordered.

[Fourstaff]

The second sketch looks suspiciously like a product from Asus (formula anyone?)

[Kitkat]

Originally Posted by Fourstaff

The second sketch looks suspiciously like a product from Asus (formula anyone?)

yep lol (anything is inovative for powercolor (dont worry i owned one b4 they are good cards :P )

Originally Posted by Cheeseball

YES! Low-profile single-slot HD 5770! Just what the doctor ordered.

YES! and more ppl will put it where it shouldnt go to make it do things it shouldn't do, or will get the same surprise they always do when requesting a single slot anything and expect it to magically change there motherboards electrical config in and out of crossfire when there cheap motherboard doesn't have that option, and to will be forced to keep the same "big ass gap" between there cards

[JATownes]

HD5770 with a Hydra chip onboard. What a concept. Also, single slot 5770 and low profile 5770 = pure WIN. I have never owned a Powercolor card, and do not know about the reliability of their products or of them as a company, but this is great innovation.

I don't think the NIC integrated is needed, but the other ideas are excellent.

[FordGT90Concept]

Those are awesome. I didn't expect Lucid Hydra to market so soon, especially coupled to a graphics card instead of built in to the motherboard. Also, putting a Killer NIC on a video card is sheer genius but only appealing if the price is right.

[OnBoard]

I saw the pictures and read innovative and though HD5770x2, but no Would have been a nice card

[btarunr]

I didn't like any of those except the single-slot and LP HD 5770. Instead they should have worked on an All-in-Wonder card based on HD 5770 with HDTV tuners using the ATI Theater 550 chip. That would have made a whole lot more sense.

[FordGT90Concept]

Originally Posted by OnBoard

I saw the pictures and read innovative and though HD5770x2, but no Would have been a nice card

HD 5870 = 2 x HD 5770 (actually, the HD 5870 is probably a little better)

No reason to make an 5770 X2.

[wahdangun]

wow, i hope power color can release HD 5870 with hydra chip in it, it will be totally rock

[Imsochobo]

Wont say no to it if it became a standard.

Allright. where are we heading?

GPU, Displayport and HDMI.
Ethernet, USB, Video and Audio. the two last is supported by ALL ati cards made since HD2000.

Cpu: Chipset(NB, IMC, IGP) and sb later ?

really, no need for a sound card nowdays if you have a reciver, really!
Bitstream sound and 192khz 24bit works, and yeah.

I remember the days when we had:
ISDN card.
Ethernet card.
Usb card.
PS2 card.
Soundcard.
Printer card.
Videocard.

Very welcome feature powercolor, ahead of the time, market is far from ready, but innovation is really nice
and Killernics are fast, i can tell you that, so

[pjladyfox]

VERY interesting configurations for the HD 5770 for certain. I'm really curious about the single-slot to see if it truly is a full-power version or just an underclocked one like NVIDIA did with the Green series. The vortex cooling thing also sounds interesting and I'm curious to see how exactly they managed to pull off such a solution without sacrificing something else.

Nice to see some companies stepping up to the plate and bringing something truly different to the table rather than just the same old thing.

Originally Posted by Kitkat

YES! and more ppl will put it where it shouldnt go to make it do things it shouldn't do, or will get the same surprise they always do when requesting a single slot anything and expect it to magically change there motherboards electrical config in and out of crossfire when there cheap motherboard doesn't have that option, and to will be forced to keep the same "big ass gap" between there cards

Actually, a single-slot card would be a good option for those running a SFF box like a Shuttle where there is'nt enough room to fit a double-wide card but still has intake vents on the side for proper cooling. Really not sure where the rest of your thoughts are coming from 'tho since single-slot SLI and Crossfire configurations have been around for awhile all the Lucid chip does is allow someone to run a mixed configuration. Unless I'm missing something in your post?

Originally Posted by btarunr

I didn't like any of those except the single-slot and LP HD 5770. Instead they should have worked on an All-in-Wonder card based on HD 5770 with HDTV tuners using the ATI Theater 550 chip. That would have made a whole lot more sense.

That would be SO yummy!

I dearly miss the AIW series and always felt that when they started to go away from the full-power card concept on the x1800 to the low-end crap chips that it lost that magic. Consider too that they could even add Eyefinity to it and allow 3 HDTV's running at either 1280x768 or 1920x1080 for your own ultimate HD system having a movie playing at an uber resolution.

[OnBoard]

Originally Posted by FordGT90Concept

HD 5870 = 2 x HD 5770 (actually, the HD 5870 is probably a little better)

No reason to make an 5770 X2.

Except price.. 2x 5770 is cheaper than 1x 5850 and you can actually buy 5770s unlike 5850. (they are $350+ and 5870 goes for almost $500)

Just getting frustrated, have been trying to buy one 5850 for a month now, like for ~$315. Hence I'd take 5770x2 for $300 instantly

[Imsochobo]

Originally Posted by OnBoard

Except price.. 2x 5770 is cheaper than 1x 5850 and you can actually buy 5770s unlike 5850. (they are $350+ and 5870 goes for almost $500)

Just getting frustrated, have been trying to buy one 5850 for a month now, like for ~$315. Hence I'd take 5770x2 for $300 instantly

It isnt here 2x5770 = aaalmost 5870.
The gains with 5870 are numerous, like lower idle power consumtion, and load.
only 1x pci-e
No CF scaling penalty in certant games.
Cons:
not 6 display outputs.

Varies from usa and europe, and ati/nvidia price diffrences are massive in some countries in europe, where nvidia is overpriced!

[choppy]

Originally Posted by JATownes

I have never owned a Powercolor card, and do not know about the reliability of their products or of them as a company

ive only owned 1 powercolor hd4870 - fantastic card , no issues whatsoever so can only comment on their products being reliable. in terms of aftersales support i couldnt comment

[Assimilator]

Putting a NIC on a video card and a Hydra chip on another? Never would've occurred to me, but when I read this it just makes sense. This allows Bigfoot and Lucid Logic to get their products into more systems, and hence used by more people, which can only improve them and lower the price; and Powercolor (I presume) gets a large amount of cash for taking this risk, as well as the ability to grow their engineers' knowledge.

Even if the end result is a flop, innovation is something we don't see enough in the GPU industry, and for that reason I hope Powercolor succeeds.

[WarEagleAU]

Wow impressive imagination their power color. I wonder how that NIC card idea would work though. I mean do you just plug your ethernet cable into the video card?

[Baum]

bah! no monster All in Wonder!

I wan't a All in Wonder HD badly :-) ( an 5xxxX2 AIW would be dream just for fun)

other things i love the low profile ati gpu's they just rock in htpc's go powercolour, go!

[Yukikaze]

That Hydra equipped HD5770 had me raise an eyebrow at first, but it is a VERY interesting product right there. The killer NIC one is just WTF. That NIC is useless enough as it is, sticking it on a (probably) overpriced to hell HD5770 isn't doing it any favors.

Now here's an idea: Hydra chip on a standalone PCIe card. Anyone to pick up that glove ? Essentially allowing anyone with three, or more, PCIe slots to use any two GPUs in a multi-GPU configuration.

[Mussels]

bigfoot may be useless, but DUDE that is cool network on a video card

[Yukikaze]

Originally Posted by Mussels

bigfoot may be useless, but DUDE that is cool network on a video card

Hehe. True enough. A HD5970 with a Hydra chip, a 10GbE NIC, a HD Tuner and connectors for six screens could be pretty interesting

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by Yukikaze

Hehe. True enough. A HD5970 with a Hydra chip, a 10GbE NIC, a HD Tuner and connectors for six screens could be pretty interesting

video, audio and network on the one card... hell HDMI does have 100Mb network in the 1.4 spec.

[WSP]

Originally Posted by Delta6326

sounds very interesting having a big foot inside hopefully temps don't rise but i don't see why they would

because they could?
while other race to be a fastest cards,this time TUL corp decide it was time to make something others wouldn't think about

ultra-hyper-super-overclocked cards? about every company made it.
a vga cards with NIC on board? never heard before
a vga cards with lucid hydra chip onboard?last time I checked, only few motherboard company made it, but NOT a vga maker

[Fourstaff]

How about a graphics card with X-Fi instead? I am sure people will appreciate that much more than some network card.