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The recent release of the HD 5870 really shook things up for both gamers and hardware enthusiasts. We barely got to know DirectX10 (DirectX-what?), and now, and we have a wave of powerful DirectX11 gaming cards on the shelves. 

Thankfully for Nvidia's sake though, there isn't much out there in the way of DirectX 11 games just yet. We have Battleforge and Dirt 2 but things on the gaming front of DirectX 11 are just getting underway.  So Nvidia still has a viable line-up to compete against ATI's new blood -- which keeps things interesting for us hardware reviewers. 

You've probably read about the new changes the HD 5000 series has brought. If not, we recommend checking out that link above to our PowerColor HD 5870 review. Today's XFX card uses the same reference design as our VisionTek HD 5870 and PowerColor HD 5870 we have already reviewed, so we'll assume you are up to speed on what the HD 5870 is all about as we continue on with this review.