The Current State Of Graphics Cards, In A Photo

@FrankenPC: ... Too much power? In a GPU? That's crazy talk.

@Hello Mister Walrus: And fart-can exhaust tips and lowered suspensions and spinnerz and...

@caspianhiro: If you actually think some company is going to order the latest HD4890 to attach it to a KVM for some strange reason, something is wrong with you.

@bobojuice: It's DAAMIT, so shouldn't there be Displayport coming out its butt somewhere?

dingus

@deanbmmv: Settle down, Beavis. I just want to play a game without worrying about any of that. I plug my 360 into my TV & stereo, hook it to the Ether, pop in a game, and go. There's no installation, no driver updating, no screwing around with chat servers, FPS tweaks, or drilling holes in my firewall for every game.

When the 360 is obsoleted in 2 years or so, I just have one thing to buy that will cost less than it would to bring my PC up to modern gaming standards.

dingus

You writers at gizmodo can stop your whining while posting in your macs, Meaningless numerical name? That's what AMD named the cards, added a R. And the part that the cooling is unsuited and ostentatious ? Many cases these days come with acrylic panels, and these cards get really hot and loud at load, so better cooling is a must. Again this cards, like most cards are not aimed at consumers like you. I do agree with the marketing claims, the military part is just stupid

douglatins

@Canoehead: It's got HDMI. WIN! And a VGA port! WIN for that too.

@bobojuice: You have the VGA connector so companies can use normal KVM switch boxes.

DVI switch boxes don't do VGA and the DVI to VGA adapter seem to seldom work.

Also, if you are doing dual heads, it's possible that the second one might be older. There are plenty of other dual DVI cards on the market.

Also, remember that big fans can move the same amount of air and turn more slowly. Slow fan speed = quiet.

caspianhiro

I think there's a hole for the Nitrous infusion too....

@deanbmmv: ...and at least one who doesn't know the difference between "was" and "were".

@FrankenPC: but what about your BFF jill?

@laikapants: Yeah, this is more bikerpunk.

I think I just made that up, but you never can tell with Punk Punk.

HeartBurnKid: Agent of R.O.A.C.H.

"200-year lifespan" + Fan = Yea freaking right, who here has had a computer fan last more than 3 years?

Froggmann

As all Marketing People and a few of us not in the Marketing world already know that the Average Consumers are Clueless, they'll understand Largest fan ever or Turbo speed more so than throwing some technical stuff like 1gb Gddr5 ram overclocked at 1gz, etc.. For the hardcore guys we look at the SPECS period not all that other mumbo jumbo..

No Display Port? Fail.

Canoehead

@CubFan81: There was only 3 kids in my English class (top tier) that left school not pronouncing hyperbole as hyper-bowl.

IDK, my old GTX 280 still can't be overloaded at 1980x1200. At some point, there really is too much horsepower.

FrankenPC

Reminds me of a nice car engine at an auto show. They are obviously spending time making it look extremely cool similar to car engines.

@jackbling: I probably won't be upgrading until the next iteration of cards come out. Or at least until i see what LFD2 looks like on my machine. And if I do upgrade I sure as hell wont be spending 50 bucks on just any crappy PSU i can find. I've had my eye on some of those nice Silverstone modular PSUs they've got, but the expense still isn't justified.

And I know for sure that once i have a left over PSU, I'm gonna want to build another PC and i think 3 is enough for now.

The fan and heat sink definitely looks effective and it is damn fast, this is one of the reasons WHY I like PC gaming, endless customisation and most if not all games do 1920X1200, now to just save up enough money for my computer...

CubFan81

Meh. 200-year life span? Overkill much? Heck in 5 years this kind of graphics horsepower will be shrunk down to the size of my thumbnail and installed in the 8th generation iPhone.

redman042

@bobojuice: nothing wrong with your 4830, oc's nicely. you can get a 36a/28a 12v power supply for around $50.00, that will run any single card config. lol and i was just trying to offer insight to the hdmi/fan in my initial post.....lol have a great day. :) turn that frown upside down.

jackbling

@dingus: Yeah and consoles don't come out with ridiculous accessories and mods...

@egoods: ...I LAN with a SN45G with an Athlon XP mobile @ 2.2ghz and an x850pro. It'll play any old game maxed out, and any modern game at least at min settings.

It cost $120 to build, from parts found on internet forums and yard sales. And that was 2 years ago.


...You don't need a current-gen machine to have a blast at LANs.

And this article had nothing to do with price anyway. It actually had nothing to do with anything, except try to build some sort of pathetic straw-man argument to troll against video cards, to what end I have no idea... PC exlusive titles are becoming rare these days, and I'm sick of people bashing the superior platform because they don't know how to spend their money...

Invisiblemoose

@dingus: To hell with that, it's why I started playing MMO's and kept playing my older FPSes that were still fun and had a lot of players still playing it like TF2.

blash

@Maori_Yelir: It should fit fine in most standard cases unless you buy a really cheap case. There are hundreds of vid cards to choose from and not all of them look like ass.

So what you're telling me is that I should start a shop that sells body kits and ground effects for graphics cards?

Hello Mister Walrus

@egoods: Maybe in the olden days, but today you can buy a decent gaming system for around $300 (less display).

@jackbling: I never said anything about buying this card. Even if I wanted a newer card I wouldn't buy it for the fact that it still uses an archaic technology as that VGA port. I "lol" at the fact that you think im a casual gamer. I'm assuming it's because of the card I stated that I own. Seeing as my OC'd hd4830 runs mostly everything I throw at it at full settings, (no i dont play crysis) coupled with the fact that I'm not really interested in buying a higher wattage PSU it's not really in my best interest in getting anything newer.

Go troll someone else.

Yeah its horribly annoying and almost impossible to compare. Even if you try to compare products of the same GPU series one ends up marginally faster than the other on another brand or they have GS G GT and who knows what else.
It sucks when people go and asks me what they should buy and I just don't know what to say. I try to compare the series, look at the numbers... then toss out a guess at them. x_x

awdark

@Voyou_Charmant: Somehow I am not impressed, I mean it should be OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lilaliendog

@werk: HDMI is limited to FHD, like I said above. With dual DVI dual link ports you can have two monitors with 2560x1600 resolution. Certainly not something for the average gamer, but I wouldn't call a card without that capability top-of-the-line as this article headlines.

I'm more of a fan of the cards with the covered coolers. They look sleeker. Also black PCB > all. In fact, my motherboard, videocard and soundcard, are all black. Green PCBs make me want to vomit and red is corny.

@bobojuice: lol at the fact you would bitch about anything aside from gaming performance on this card, you are a casual gamer at best, and this card obviously is not for you. buy one of a hundred iterations from any of the hundred manufacturers.

to quote your own post, "Your reasoning is, to put it simply, dumb. "

jackbling

@TheStateOnDVD2Day_GitEmSteveDave: That's right Al!

USMarty

@TheStateOnDVD2Day_GitEmSteveDave: That's right Al

mrjack711

@rickatnight11: And im sure the refresh rate and screen resolution would provide a very exciting experience on your HDTV.

@werk: I wasn't talking about buying a dedicated DVI to HDMI cable. I was talking about the DVI to HDMI adapters that most of these new cards come with anyway. You could do it that way, but my point was why in the hell would you add an OLD technology to a HIGH end card like that. It's dumb.

@bobojuice:
I don't really understand what you're arguing about. You can just as easily go HDMI => DVI from this card with the same cable turned the other way. That way, you get the benefits of 2 digital outputs, an analog output, and, you get audio out through the HDMI if you want to reduce cables in a HTPC application. Why, exactly would you prefer 2 DVI instead of this?

Looks like the fan is blocking the use of the CrossFire port if you were planning to use two of these together.

Daz_Genetic

@bobojuice: An HTPC was just an example, but actually if I had a computer hooked up to my widescreen, I'd sure as hell want to do some gaming on it :-)

@zenneth: ATIs newer cards have onboard HDMI sound requiring only a driver. I've used it on my HD4830 which is a lower end card, but it still works. The only problem is that it takes over your sound so you cant use onboard. I disabled it since im using dual displays. 22 inch LCD and a 32 inch HDTV.

@rickatnight11: Because this card is insane overkill for an HTPC. You can pick up an 80 dollar card that will do everything you need.

R Stands for Radeon, ATI's chipset being used on this card.
4890 is the model number.

If you think its meaningless then you obviously don't look at anything when you buy graphics cards aside from the pretty box.

so naming of processors, phones, cars, and well, everything else that gets updated numerically must also be meaningless. Would you rather it be given only some worthless word/title for a name? Only MSI Cyclone? I do admit that calling it "cyclone" is ridiculous, but you called out the numerical name.

electroseven

Madness! A VGA port? What is this? 2001?

@bobojuice: HDMI usually requires a pass-through cable when using an add-on video card. Unfortunately, my Creative XFi doesn't provide this capability, so now my HDMI doesn't deliver audio. So, even though my display supports VGA, DVI, and HDMI, I won't get the audio portion of the HDMI.

zenneth

@bobojuice: If it fits in the case, I don't see why not, unless you're talking about heat.

@rickatnight11: If tight spaces are your main issue, I doubt you'd be contemplating purchasing this card.

@bobojuice: For tight spaces (such as a snug HTPC installation) using a DVI-to-HDMI adaptor won't really fit.

This is a big part of the reason I don't really keep up with the high performance desktop game anymore. Well, that and the insane fast cycle. Nothing quite like dropping $300 in to a machine right before a LAN party, going to the LAN party, having a blast, and realizing that you need to upgrade the rig again before the next LAN... pretty expensive hobby.

@diabolusunknownTheSecond: Not all monitors have HDMI ports. And you could easily go DVI => HDMI with a simple adapter.

Try again.

@jackbling: Like I said before. You don't need a dedicated HDMI port. If you wanted to use HDMI all you'd need is a DVI=>HDMI connector. They both use a digital signal and you can send sound over both.

Also, just because I can't use a dual display during gaming, it doesn't mean I don't want to be able to use dual digital signals on both monitors without having to go over HDMI. Your reasoning is, to put it simply, dumb.

Lastly, if you actually thought my comment about the fan being used simply for styling was serious. I'd suggest you go here=> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

@bobojuice: There are two digital connectors.

One HDMI and one DVI. The VGA is a bonus, and because there is space.

diabolusunknownTheSecond

John Herrman, your post says nothing about the video card industry and much about your ignorance of it. Please tell the engineers this design is "completed unsuited" for the job of the card. There aren't any bizarre or irrelevant claims visible at the Slashgear post, so frankly I'm left wondering what you might be referencing.

Virtually all technology markets have numbering schemes that would be "meaningless" to someone not familiar with them, but you are factually incorrect here-- 4890 is a meaningful number according to their numbering sequence. It's similar to Intel's. If you're saying there shouldn't be any cognitive barrier to entry, that's fundamentally at odds with the entire world of technology for the last hundred years. A good consumer researches their purchases and learns the lingo, period.

The chart you listed as a "headache" makes perfect sense to anyone with a cursory understanding of video cards from the last few years. I'm left wondering why you seem willfully ignorant on this topic, and why that became the (irrelevant) main idea of your post.

Phyltre

@Sticks Calhoun: AFAIK there is a limit on the number of outputs that these cards can have. 2 dvi-i and 1 9-pin mini din connector. Anyway what they have done here is dropped the mini-din and connected the digital wires of one of the dvi connectors to the hdmi port (also audio) and then the analogue part to the vga port. Of course this means that you can't use the vga and hdmi at the same time.

Knasher

@iatacs19: When it comes to noise a big fan is actually what you want. Slow RPMs while still moving a lot of air. Of course it would be nice if they could be passively cooled instead.

sneakypoo

@bobojuice: No Dual DVI is probably because of the HDMI out. Not enough room for 2 DVIs and 1 HDMI (?)

EVEs_Mako

Ostentatious or not, that thing's going to run quiet.

Sockatume

@bobojuice: the vga connector is there to accommodate the built in hdmi. it isnt really a loss since you cant really game on dual monitors

the fan/heatsink is not purely cosmetic, the heatpiping pulls heat away from the pcb, allowing a much cooler surface temp, not to mention faster and more effective cooling for the gpu.

jackbling

so in today's market does OC mean Orange County (choppers) or overclocked? kinda gives a new meaning to graphics engine.

Nick

@Lite: is on a boat.: Needs more power, right Tim?

@dingus: A * commenter making flamebait?
I'll bite, So how many different PS3's n 360's, DS's and PSP's have their been upto now?
And when did MS decided Jet Engines made great additions to a console?
7th gen consoles are just as consumer unfriendly as PC's now, which I suppose is a feature inherent in the system as they pretty much are becoming PC's. Cos Pc's you used to check if it came with Wi-fi, how big's the HDD?, is it dual core, qaud or a solo?
6th gen it was "what games does it play" not anymore.
And I agree with Wooden501, when Consoles do 2K consistently ( they barely do HD as it is now) then I'll move over full time, till then I play console exclusives on console, everything else on PC.

200-year lifespan? I can only assume this means that the card won't disintegrate in 200 years. That aside, there's not a snowball's chance under my fat aunt's ass that this thing will still be relevant or useful to anyone in 20 years let alone 200.

Unless it came from the future. In which case, good on computer engineers for the next 200 years for maintaining backwards compatibility with PCI standards.

@apprehensive: The lack of brass disqualifies this from being steampunk.

laikapants

@dingus: Maybe once consoles start outputting at 1920x1200 resolution or higher I will consider going completely over to them, but until then I'll just stick to playing exclusives and bad PC ports on consoles and everything else on PC.

Woden501

@Lokno: Yeah and you could do the same thing with dual dvi ports just like i have at home. In fact the new ATI cards support audio over HDMI and that includes using a DVI to HDMI adapter.

That's the BEST price for a graphics card in OVER 200 YEARZ!

@Greg Lloyd: Its a FCGA (Flux Capacitor Video Adaptor).
That's what makes time travel possible. I know cause I saw that image when I banged my head on the sink, while I was hanging a picture on the bathroom wall.

SewerShark

@2DaysTillTheState_GitEmSteveDave: It's tucked in behind that binford industrial cooling fan I think.

And with all that sticking off the top how is that going to fit in most cases? If they can sell this ridiculous thing for $250 imagine what the price would be if they didn't decide to make it only for jackasses with clear case panels.

Maori_Yelir

What happened to making these video cards QUIET???

iatacs19

@Sticks Calhoun: its another feature. its the only high end card without 2 dvi ports, who needs those 2 big intimidating clustered ports, this card is truly streamliened, and way ahead of its time

/sarcasm

@TheStateOnDVD2Day_GitEmSteveDave: Hmmm. Conspiracy, perhaps? Maybe it's just a low-end Radeon, rebadged as "msi", and had a big-ass fan slapped on it to cover the shameful GPU.

Nice cooling fan. Where is the graphics card the article mentions?

@Sticks Calhoun: You can probably use both the hdmi and the DVI ports at the same time, but you'd be limited to FHD on the second monitor

@Sticks Calhoun It looks like it has HDMI, VGA, and DVI. 2 Digital and one analog.

Jeffsmashkot

@dingus: Boo, hoo. Everyone thinks that having a pc means you HAVE to max out, but console graphics are typically the same as medium. And as consoles become outdated, the definition of "high" and "very high" become more impressive.

@bobojuice: Yeah, that VGA port is really silly. They could have least put a mini-dvi port on it if they didn't have room for another full one.

I'm surprised the price is as low as it is.

@bobojuice: I'm with you. I was looking at that and wondering why it didn't have two digital outputs.

But why no duel DVI?

This is one reason I moved to console gaming.

dingus

Wow, somebody is way too obsessed with the whole steampunk scene.

apprehensive

@SewerShark: Did it become a CGA card?

Greg Lloyd

Largest, ugliest fan, ever!!! "200 Year Lifespan" . . . .right?!!? It'll become obsolete in the first half of 2010. . . . .but, at least they can still keep making ugly fans. . . .!!!

CelfDestruk

200 year lifespan? Huh.

Actually I just a a similar card (-Cyclone fan) in a build. Great card. And if your case has the room the card above would be pretty sweet.

There's nothing worse than gaming and having your gfx card go on the fritz because it does not have adequate OEM cooling on it.

250 bucks isn't really too bad for this card. My question is why THE HELL would you stick a vga connector on a high end card like this?

Really stupid.

And I'm sure that fan is simply for styling...

You best be trolling.

200 year lifespan with a VGA port that's already dated... right

lol - I double checked my address bar to make sure I didn't click on Jalopnik when I saw this at the top.

SuperTuna

@mikeness: OMFG, My VGA went back in time.

SewerShark

Holy shit, don't let that thing reach 88MPH.

200 years? By then my toilet will have a better GPU than this. Would be great for a Harley case mod, but not for much else.

wolfsingleton

@Project_J187: Really? Maybe it's because I'm familiar with it, but I think that it's pretty straight forward. 4890, 4 being generation, 8 being high rank, 90 being highest (1-9). I'm still getting used to the GTX stuff with Nvidia. :S

meow-mixer

@egoods: I doubt gaming graphics advance that fast, unless you only LAN once every 2 years or so. If you have a computer that can handle any current game maxed, you can probably handle any game maxed for a few years. You don't need to get 160 fps on everything, really, but if you do, then you have a reason to blow huge dollars constantly.

@Hello Mister Walrus: Judging by how some gamers configure their rigs, there really isn't a small market for these. You could make a killing off those guys.

@xbinflux: It might look like a monstruosity, but if you never need to look at it and it does the job quietly... then what is the problem?

This looks mostly like a Zalman CPU cooler bent into shape for a video card... right?

aec007

@LastVigilante: Yea the WIN was more of a nostalgic type... But I'm still rocking two displays with VGA ports!

Not because I want to, of course, but because I can't afford two new displays.

@Project_J187 I had both Gforce and Quadro's FX cards and Nvidia drivers suck compared to ATI's.

I was not fond of ATI's lower performance and when a Gforce card fried and had to buy a 3D card on a rush for working purposes, I was just amazed at ATI drivers. Not only ATI is rock solid with drivers, the cards are cheaper with comparable performance and lower power requirements.

Now I'm sold on ATI. No better bang for the buck.

aec007

@Project_J187: Nvidia kinda screwed themselves though, what with running out of 4-digit numbers before going out of business (not that I think they need to go out of business, as I kinda like 'em). I wish they had just embraced the horror and kept on truckin' in 5-digit land, but what do I know.

I am pretty disappointed in MSI, however, for this monstrosity. I have been a fan of MSI's Nvidia cards for some time, but if they start shipping with crap like this one them, I'm looking elsewhere. I can't say much about AMD/ATI's reference board and reference heatsink offerings, but I do know that Nvidia spends quite a bit of time and money developing theirs to be nearly adequate in most situations. Many manufacturers just put new stickers on the reference heatsink, and call it a day. I wish that had happened here.

Every gfx card should be required to post some standardized benchmarks. Period.

I would kill for a graphics card with a 200 year lifespan. When I got my Radeon HD 4870 X2, the damn thing lasted for a few months and then died. I had to send it in twice (still haven't gotten it back from the second time) and I don't even know if it will work this time. For the record, never by a GPU from the 3rd party manufacturer Visiontek. The first time I sent it in, I had to wait 2 months and they sent back a card that didn't work.

err - not to bed that guy - but graphics cards have always been confusing and obscure.

Mike Lewis

meaningless numerical name? the numerical part of the name is the only part that's actually meaningful. the "cyclone SOC" is the random part.

willyolio

The graphics card market really pisses me off, I buy a new card every year just to keep up with the games.
I'm hoping Onlive and the like will change everything for the better.

TNTBW

As a hardcore PC gamer I find that card and its claims ridiculous. First would be the 200 year lifecycle that won't matter because the damn thing will be obsolete within a year. Second is the numbering. Not a fan of how ATI is doing it currently and I loved Nvidia's before the 200 series cards came out.


However I do like the fan considering I have to deal with a lot of heat in my machine and the graphics card is the main culprit. Love/hate relation ship I guess.

Project_J187

@MrThunderfield: I think we need to subtract a few years from their claimed "200-year lifespan" just for the fact that VGA is already long obsolete. Anyone buying this card who still uses a VGA cable should reassess their priorities.

@MrThunderfield: Just channeling my inner Steve Jobs :))
Actually, I was more surprised that it had a VGA port.

Canoehead

Yea, picking out out graphics cards is ass, just give the specs, amount of RAM, power usage and let me be on my merry way.

AaronC-T

@dingus: That's fine for you, but I like having a machine that could run 2 of your precious 360 games. Console games looks like shit compared to the PC.

mrwumasta

@MrThunderfield: WIN! Yes, my point exactly. If you had the cash for an outrageous graphics card, you should probably first put that money into a newer, more capable monitor with DVI... and then get the graphics card to get the most bang out of it. :)

@LastVigilante: Yes I'm definitely gonna update my monitors soon. I won't buy a new card before directX 11, seems like a waste of money since my HD 3870 is doing just fine with everything.