Over the past few weeks I have been gradually speccing up a new gaming rig for myself. I have been carefully choosing parts that are compatible with each other so I’ve done quite a bit of research. I finally went to place my order for the parts and encountered some credit card problems, “no biggy” I thought. I’ll ring the credit card company the following evening. I came home tonight to find that the bank have been trying to get hold of me due to a possible fraud attempt on my card. Anyway, I’ve called them back and it’s kind of sorted out – I just need to go down my local branch over the week.

Thank feck the order didn’t go through as stores specialising in PC components are now stocking ATI’s Radeon 5800 series graphics cards, which are coming out starting from next week. I’d previously chosen two Radeon 4890′s which have set up in a Crossfire configuration. Granted, the 5870 is a little cheaper than 2x 4890s but it’ll save me money in the long run as I’ll now not need to replace one or both of them a year down the line.

Also, the main selling point for me is the DirectX 11 support as I want to get the most out of Aliens Vs Predator when it comes out next year. I freakin’ love Aliens… and Predator. ^_^

ati_radeon_hd5870

That card looks sweet! All black and shiny.

Fastest single gpu card available. Pure awesome

Yup! I’m only getting the one at the moment, but a few months down the line I’ll probably get a second. I look forward to seeing this running in the Crossfire Configuration, benchmark tests have shown it to be quite a monster.