AMD launches new ATI graphics cards

 

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Posted on 12 Aug 2008 at 12:48

AMD has launched the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 and HD 4850 X2 graphics cards. The company claims the 4870 is the world's fastest graphics card, whereas the 4850 is placed at a compelling price point.

According to AMD, the 4870 delivers 2.4 teraFLOPS of processing power and the company said it is already available to buy, priced at £290 worldwide. The 4850 X2 is due to be released in September, at an estimated price of £210.

The cards comprise combine two ATI Radeon HD 4800 series GPUs with a more advanced cross-GPU connection and 2 GB of memory. AMD reckons these technologies combine to make the 4800 X2 series suited to the most demanding games at extreme resolutions and image quality settings.

"The ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series is proof that our graphics strategy is working," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager at AMD's graphics products group.

"The response from OEMs, system integrators, game developers, press, and most importantly, from gamers regarding the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series products has been incredibly positive," he added.

The company also said it is striving to provide "eye-definition" computing. Company representatives met with gaming experts and Hollywood execs yesterday to discuss science of achieving visual computing experiences that seem optically real.

The first application of eye-definition computing was demonstrated yesterday in New York. "Cinema 2.0" shows the power to digitally create interactive environments and characters that seem optically real in either a video game or digital cinema context, said AMD.

The company claimed that leading content creators have demonstrated the first "virtual" actor to be rendered in real-time in perfect lifelike detail, using the ATI Radeon series.

Check out our first-look review for more details on the Radeon HD 4870 X2.

Author: Dawinderpal Sahota