Evergreen mini review, for the not so tech minded.

[wolf]

Hey guys, I have a spot in each months iiNet (Australia's 3rd biggest ISP) newsletter to have an article or review of some sort, so this time I thought I'd do ATi's evergreen.

I could use any input you guys want to add before I send it to the editor tomorrow or tuesday, but do keep in mind this isn't for nerds at all, its for everyone, mums, dads, grandparents, kids who don't know any better... you get the picture.

Hope you like the read, I'm constricted to 350-500 words, so I can only really touch on features and specifics, that's why there aren't tech specs, clock speeds blah blah blah, anyway I'll get to it.

EDIT: this entire review so far has been edited for typo's/grammar, thanks for the advice W1z

For the past couple of generations of graphics cards ATI seems to have been playing second fiddle to the green giant NVIDIA, every time they released a product NVIDIA would answer it with something more powerful, but not this time, or at least not yet. ATI's new "Evergreen" lineup is quite a step ahead of NVIDIA, not only in terms of sheer power, but shiny new features to boot.

On September 23rd this year ATI announced the start of their series, but already they have claimed the market's midrange, and high end completely with Evergreen products, boasting class leading performance and features, one of which is Microsoft’s latest graphics API; DirectX11.

ATI's new lineup looks a little bit like this; 5750, 5770 (Juniper) in the midrange, 5850 and 5870 (Cypress) in the high end and 5970 (Hemlock) as the world’s fastest graphics card. All of these new cards are made on the fresh 40nm fabrication node, and boast leading performance-per-watt. What one must take into account however is that, like in previous generations, the 5970 as their highest product is a Dual-GPU design, which means there are two Cypress cores on one card, which while awesome, means you are at the mercy of ATi's driver releases to take advantage of half of the cards power. Keep in mind that like previous generations, you can link any two, and sometimes more, of these cards together to double up on your graphics powerhouse.

All of the Evergreen have a very interesting feature that ATI calls "Eyefinity". What Eyefinity allows you to do, is connect 3 monitors to a single evergreen graphics product, and not only that, you can use them all to play games in triple widescreen, in many interesting, and awesome looking combinations. Before you rush out to buy any one of these cards trying to do this, it is also worth noting that one monitor must be connected by a Display Port connector, or you must purchase an active Display Port adapter, as all Evergreen products so far sport at least one of these kind of connectors which must be used for Eyefinity.

With availability increasing over the next month or two, you might be lucky enough to snag one (or two) of these babies in your Xmas shopping. NVIDIA looks very late to the table this time, with their answer to Evergreen, "Fermi", slated for Q1 2010. So if you want the best performance, the latest features or simply to get your hands on some new toys, an Evergreen card might just be for you.

 

[W1zzard]

For the past couple of generations of graphic's cards ATi seems to have been playing second fiddle to the green giant Nvidia, everytime they released a product Nvidia would answer it with something more powerful, but not this time, or at least not yet. ATi's new "Evergreen" lineup is quite a step ahead of Nvidia, not only in terms of sheer power, but shiny new features to boot.

On September 23rd this year ATi announed the start of their series, but already they have claimed the market's midrange, and high end completely with Evergreen products, boasting class leading performance and features, one of which is Microsofts latest graphics API; DirectX11.

Ati's new lineup looks a little bit like this; 5750, 5770 (Juniper) in the midrange, 5850 and 5870 (Cypress) in the high end and 5970 (Hemlock) as the worlds fastest graphics card. All of these new cards are made on the fresh 40nm fabrication node, and boast leading performance-per-watt. what one must take into account however is that, like in previous generations, the 5970 as their highest product, is a Dual-GPU design, which means there are two Cypress cores on one card, which while awesome, means you are at the mercy of ATi's driver realeases to take advantage of half of the cards power. Keep in mind that like previous generations, you can link any two, and sometimes more, of these cards together to double up on your graphics powerhouse.

All of the Evergreen have a very intersting feature that ATI calls "Eyefinity". What Eyefinity allows you to do, is connect 3 monitors to a single evergreen graphics product, and not only that, you can use them all to play games in triple widescreen, in many intersting, and awesome looking combinations. Before you rush out to buy any one of these cards trying to do this, it is also worth noting that one monitor must be connected by a Display Port connector, or you must purchase an active display port adapter, as all Evergreen products so far sport at least one of these kind of connectors which must be used for Eyefinity.

With availibility increasing over the next month or two, you might be lucky enough to snag one (or two) of these babies in your Xmas shopping. Nvidia looks very late to the table this time, with their answer to Evergreen, "Fermi", slated for Q1 2010. So if you want the best performance, the latest features or simply to get your hands on some new toys, an Evergreen card might just be for you.

greetings from the spelling and grammar nazi

nice writeup though, especially considering the word limit

 

[wolf]

Aww gee whizz W1z, you have no idea how much that means to me

And yeah, it was written in notepad

 

[W1zzard]

And yeah, it was written in notepad

write in whatever you like, just deliver it in a form that makes the editor/reader smile.
(on a general note, not against you). it is my personal belief that text with a lot of obvious typos shows the author's lack of interest on that topic, or lack of respect for the readers. why should you trust what someone writes if he can't even master typing.

 

[wolf]

Thanks for the tip W1z I'm editing it all up at the moment, might edit my first post with it and a note about the edit, anyway;

how would you write Nvidia and ATi that you have highlighted? just nvidia and ati? or something different...

 

[W1zzard]

correct capitalization is NVIDIA and ATI, nothing else

 

[Meow9000]

*puts grammar nazi hat away* maybe next time...

 

[JTS]

I could use any input you guys want to add before I send it to the editor tomorrow or tuesday, but do keep in mind this isn't for nerds at all, its for everyone, mums, dads, grandparents, kids who don't know any better... you get the picture.

This is just my 0.2cents from a Johhny come lately:

It's a good write up, but it still feels aimed at a niche market ie Enthusiasts

By taking into consideration the target audience, I would further highlight the power saving advantages over previous generations. Equate power saving into $$$ saved.

Expand a little more on the Eyefinity feature by giving some quick examples that the demographic can relate to ie One monitor for browsing, another for e-mail, word, real time stock report, multi-monitor gaming. Mentioning a triple monitor FSX or a rail sim will appeal to the dads, grandads.

To meet the word limit, downplay any negative connotations like driver issues etc.

I'd also avoid using terms like 'awesome' and 'babies'. That tends to alienate some of your target audience.

Good luck with it