About three months ago, Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices officially unveiled its latest series of desktop graphics cards, namely the Radeon HD 58xx family of GPUs. Launched at a time when a considerable number of reports were indicating that both AMD and NVIDIA had problems with TSMC's 40nm manufacturing technology, the series came with a list of new features that were mainly meant to enhance the visual experience of desktop PC users. In addition, the series was outed at a time when NVIDIA wasn't expected to immediately come up with something that would compete with the fresh Radeon GPUs.

The first series of 40nm-based, DirectX 11-compatible GPUs was launched back in late September, with the chip maker introducing two new cards, the 5850 and its fresh flagship, the Radeon HD 5870. Both cards were said to be capable of delivering an impressive performance, thanks to their powerful GPUs and the unique list of features. However, the HD 5870 stayed on top only for some time, as AMD had bigger plans. The chip maker later released the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970, a high-end graphics card somewhat different from the previous dual-GPU Radeon cards.



The HD 5970 was released back in November, following a series of leaked details that further increased anticipation around the new card. When it was officially introduced, the card's specifications were nothing short of impressive, packing a total processing power of 4.64 TeraFLOPS, making AMD's flagship Radeon card the king of desktop graphics.

However, the high processing power of the chip maker's latest release came at a cost and one that is still considered as rather exclusive. Aside from its performance capabilities, the Radeon HD 5970 was accompanied by a series of minimum requirements that would dig a considerable hole in the user's budget. Nevertheless, this was a card for the enthusiast market, something that AMD made very clear since the official debut of the gadget.



On that note, we were presented with the opportunity of testing AMD's flagship card, a dual-GPU behemoth that comes with its own list of demands. We put the card through its paces and even had time to play a couple of games, using one of the new features that AMD introduced with the launch of its new generation of Radeon graphics cards. We will try to cover as many key points as possible, with our review of the Radeon HD 5970, including the performance aspects, but also details about the company, its products and the overall market. Without further ado, we'll be taking you on a very nice journey.