2012-12-21-89

[Rumour] ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity delayed to end of March

The ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity edition, which has been demonstratedall the way back in November 2009, was finally set to see release nextweek. However, Fudzilla's sources from Cebit claim ATI have once againdelayed the HD 5870 Eyefinity. The new release date is said to be end ofMarch.

Fudzilla suggests that the delay may be due to drivertweaking. However, considering the main core remains pretty muchunchanged from the 6-month old HD 5870, there might be a differentreason. End of March seemingly fits in well with Nvidia's big GeforceGTX 400 series release on March 26th.

The rumours and leaked benchmarks seem to point universally at the same conclusion - the GTX 480 just edges out the HD 5870 by 5-10% on average, whilst extending the advantage in the Unigine benchmark, which Nvidia is quick to point out, and is the only comparison they have officially shown thus far.

The HD 5870 Eyefinity is rumoured to have the same clock speeds, but with double the memory - with a 2GB frame buffer. This will boost performance at demanding graphical settings like high resolutions and heavy anti-aliasing, and might help close the gap to the GTX 480. Remember, the HD 5870 is priced much cheaper and consumes much less power than the GTX 480. Now that ATI has a good idea of the GTX 480's performance characteristics, perhaps they might decide to give the HD 5870 Eyefinity a slight overclock, further closing the gap, or even opening up a lead over the GTX 480. There are several possibilities, though one must feel that the HD 5870's 5 month delay is largely due to marketing strategies.

The big feature of the HD 5870 Eyefinity is of course the 6 mini-displayport outputs, which could drive 6 separate monitors. While an exotic feature, the practical use of such a card is rather questionable, when it comes to gaming.

The HD 5870 Eyefinity edition is expected to retail for anywhere between $400 and $500.

Reference: Fudzilla