Both AMD and Nvidia are gearing up to release new DirectX 11 capable cards in just a few weeks and it seems like AMD has come out swinging.  Their new RV870 core powered cards, to be called the Radeon HD 58xx series (no surprises there), effectively doubles the processing power over last generations Rv770 with a full 1600 stream processors.  It remains to be seen (and tested) if this will also double the actual power of the cards or not.  When I find that out I’ll be sure to keep you all informed.

The 5870′s will have an 825mhz core and come in two varieties, 1GB of RAM or 2GB, and retail (supposedly) for $399 and $449 respectively.  The more mainstream and slower 5850 will also have 1GB of memory and sell for $299.  Some additional tech specs can be found at Fudzilla, though keep in mind these are not officially released specs.

Now double the power of the 48xx series is quite a bit of oomph and frankly, there isn’t really a game out there right now that needs it.  So what do you do with all that extra pizazz?  Multi-head setups of course.  AMD calls it Eyefinity and it’s all about the resolution.  One new Radeon HD 5870 card will actually support 6 monitors producing a single resolution of 7680-by-3200.  The best part, however, is that this is done through AMD’s drivers and is transparent to Windows, meaning the OS (and therefore the games) will see all six monitors as one and won’t have to worry themselves with how to display the image across them, AMD takes care of that.  Have a crapload of cash and nothing to do with it?  Why not slap four 5870′s in a single system and run 24 monitors from the same, single machine for a mind numbing resolution of 30,720-by-12,800. It’s been done already and I’ll take 8.

Samsung has stated that they will support Eyefinity with a series of small bezel monitors so when you’re tying six of their monitors together it will appear slightly more seamless.  Good for them.  Well kids, that’s what you have to look forward to in just a few more weeks.  When I get word of Nvidia’s plans I’ll be sure to let you know.