This is NOT film. Watch a realtime render of a scene that was created entirely in a virtual environment – made possible with the processing power ATI RV770-codenamed graphics cards and AMD Phenom X4 processors.
Now this is some impressive stuff, while the previous videos I had posted here were of poor quality and taken on someone’s mobile phone, this one here shows the true clarity and beauty of what this platform is doing. I say platform and not CPU/GPU should be evident by some of the performance analysis and outlook that can be found at this article from AnandTech.com. This is not about the fastest processor anymore, and its not just about the fastest GPU either, its about the ENTIRE package. Apple proves to us everyday that you have to have complete control of your hardware and software, the widget as they call it. Never more is this evident than in today’s computer hardware world. The folks in Sunnyvale just may have hit a home run with this idea, and their acquisition of ATI. You may have remember there were some leaked specs of the Radeon 4850 on Amazon a few days ago, well those same great folks over at AnandTech have gotten their hands on one of the cards and some details (read the whole review here) .
The quick and dirty:
- 800 Stream Processors
- 55nm
- 16 ROPS
- Single Slot Cooling
- 512mb
- Single PCIe power
- support for 8-channel LPCM output over HDMI
- $199
Yes, you saw that last one correctly, only ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE DOLLARS. While Nvidia’s flagship GPU is on sale right now for well over $600 USDA, this little puppy is WAY cheaper. So which card are YOU going to go out and buy, Nvidia’s new hot and heavy killer who sucks up power, or the Red Team’s sleek, small and cool card for $199? To me, its a no-brainer…I am gonna wait a week, even with Nvidia’s newly announced price drops on the 9800. 
