AMD Releases Fastest Mobile GPU

Stoobalou writes "AMD has scored another point over its graphics rival Nvidia with what it claims is the world's fastest single-GPU mobile graphics processor, the Radeon HD 6990M. While the red team is unlikely to hold the crown for long in the fast-moving world of discrete graphics, the company's latest chip is certainly impressive enough. Based on the TeraScale 2 unified processor architecture and the Barts GPU core, the Radeon HD 6990M — a mobile equivalent to the company's high-end Radeon HD 6990 PCI Express graphics card design — features 1,120 stream processing units, 56 texture units, 128 Z/stencil ROP units, and 32 color ROP units."

Re:Can you imagine...

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

The better question is... what games really need it? Most of the popular games on the market are still programmed to run well on 7 year old hardware.

Well sure, some game still run on old hardware. Whether or not the run well is a completely subjective opinion.

Now I'm not saying you need to buy new, top of the line hardware every year to enjoy your games... but the exponential speed/power increase means that you need to be getting mid-range hardware every few years to play modern titles at high resolution with decent detail.

Again, you're not wrong. But I like to play at FHD with 4x AA and very high details. If you're okay with VGA @ low, then you can keep your dual 9800gtx setup for another few years. See, the low/entry level point for graphics performance is ... low. VERY low. Even modern IGP solutions will play many games at 20fps. But I like to see this sort of high-end tech come out, because it puts downward pressure on mid-range cards, that perform quite well considering their low price. I won't buy a top-of-the-line card every year ... but I'm glad that someone will, because those purchases drive the innovation.

You may also notice that most popular games on the market are console ports, designed to run on consoles. But not all of them ... so if you're still playing MW2 or some other brainless console port, sure. You're right. Pat yourself on the back for that earth-shattering revelation.