2008 • HD 4870 X2: Another Double Decker
2008 • HD 4870 X2: Another Double Decker
Woah! If size was everything, this double decker would be a star (at least when the drivers enabled CrossFire). The joy of owning this card was completely dependent on software, it seemed.
2009 • HD 4890
2009 • HD 4890
Take a success story, squeeze it just a bit more and…no, we're not talking about the G92 this time. Rather, we're looking at the Radeon HD 4890, based on the same general architecture at the heart of Radeon HD 4870.
2009 • HD 5770: Middle-Class With Class
2009 • HD 5770: Middle-Class With Class
ATI managed to make the Juniper family an attractive mid-range option. Low idle power consumption, moderate power consumption under load, and low production costs (complements of what the company called its Sweet Spot strategy) meant economical gains for ATI (already part of AMD by this point).
2009 • HD 5870: A Hot Autumn Ends With A Cool High-End
2009 • HD 5870: A Hot Autumn Ends With A Cool High-End
A November child of the other kind, ATI's Radeon HD 5870 was a rather affordable high end-card that Nvidia only outpaced with the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295.
2009 • HD 5970: A Tasty Sandwich Without The Double X
2009 • HD 5970: A Tasty Sandwich Without The Double X
Two can play at that game. ATI re-reclaimed the performance crown yet again with a dual-GPU Radeon HD 5000-series board. The computing power of a single HD 5970 is all it takes to get to the top ten in the protein folding charts.
2010 • HD 5670: From Top To Bottom
2010 • HD 5670: From Top To Bottom
The new lower mid-range segment? ATI now has so many variations in its portfolio that the classes merge into each other. So long as the end-users are happy, though, and can keep track of what is what, then cards like the 5670 will continue to sell.
2010 • The End Of The ATI Brand
2010 • The End Of The ATI Brand
As the year came to an end, only the Radeon brand remained standing (even the Stream initiative took a bullet).
After 25 years, ATI finally becomes AMD. Though it's a notable passing, the move makes sense for AMD. The company that once swallowed successful competitors like Tseng Labs and ArtX is now completely assimilated. Good night ATI; good morning AMD!
2010 • HD 6850: The x800s Become Middle-Class
2010 • HD 6850: The x800s Become Middle-Class
Anyone who thinks that the new 6850 and 6870 are the new upper-class, as AMD's past naming convention would suggest, is badly mistaken. AMD defined a new middle class with these products, while the Radeon HD 5700-series continues cleaning up in the lower end of the mid-range segment.
2010 • HD 6870: The Big Small One
2010 • HD 6870: The Big Small One
The Radeon HD 6870 introduced solid performance at a reasonable price, with new features like up to four display outputs per card.
Of course, as we recently saw, the Radeon HD 6900-series cards followed up by making AMD's architecture more efficient. And the Radeon HD 6990 should be here soon to demonstrate what a dual-GPU version of the Cayman family can do.
