Introduction

I happen to live in Florida and seasons don’t change similarly to the way most are accustomed to, but there are some changes that are apparent. WalMart usually puts their early Christmas display up in mid - October, some transplanted trees do actually lose their leaves and the children have been back in school for almost two months. This time of the year usually places me in a frenzy, since I know that it’s almost time for my favorite part of the year, which is new product launches. It doesn’t really matter what products they are, but computer components are at the top of my list. From now until Christmas, manufacturers will be launching a plethora of items to help cure your geek.

We usually see our first big launch coming from video card manufacturers and this year is no different than the last 10 years I have been in this business. AMD has announced the launch of their second generation DirectX 11 video cards codenamed “Barts” (this next line will be named after Northern Islands). These new video cards are still built on a 40nm  the same as their predecessor “Cypress,” but have a few upgrades to enhance their performance. AMD (formerly ATI) has updated their tessellation engine for improved DirectX 11 performance, enhanced image quality, via improved AA and AF, and optimized their existing architecture. “AMD has also committed themselves to giving the consumer more performance for the dollar.” (quote from AMD) The first two video cards made available will be very similar to the “Cypress” line with some noticeable changes - increased clock speeds, streaming processors, lower idle power consumption and 25% less silicon (Die Size 255mm2). This new GPU is the "Barts".

The AMD Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 video cards are priced for the “Gamers Sweet Spot,” or mainstream gamer, at starting prices of $239.99 USD and $179.99 USD. The new AMD 6870 and 6850 are competitively priced and manufactured to meet or exceed the performance of other DirectX 11 video cards in its class.