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Colin McRae: Dirt 2 (known as Dirt 2 outside Europe and stylised, DiRT) is a racing game released in September 2009, and is the sequel to Colin McRae: Dirt. This is the first game in the McRae series since McRae’s death in 2007. It was announced on 19 November 2008 and features Ken Block, Travis Pastrana, Tanner Foust, and Dave Mirra. The game includes many new race-events, including stadium events. Along with the player, an RV travels from one event to another, and serves as ‘headquarters’ for the player. It features a roster of contemporary off-road events, taking players to diverse and challenging real-world environments. The game takes place across four continents: Asia, Europe, Africa and North America. The game includes five different event types: Rally, Rallycross, ‘Trailblazer,’ ‘Land Rush’ and ‘Raid.’ The World Tour mode sees players competing in multi-car and solo races at new locations, and also includes a new multiplayer mode.
This engine support DX11 and was one of the integral releases for ATI when they launched the 5xxx series cards a while ago. Hardware tessellation is used on the crowd, as well as water and cloth objects. DirectCompute 11 accelerated high definition ambient occulsion is also integrated with full floating point high dynamic range lighting.
We enabled maximum settings, including hardware tessellated animated crowds and dynamic water via ULTRA settings.
Both the 5870 and Toxic 5850 manage to maintain the frame rate above 25 at all times however the reference 5850 struggles in a few environments and we see a little shuddering from time to time.
The Toxic 5850 even on a 30 inch screen at native resolution puts in a fantastic set of end results never dropping under 25fps. The advantages over the reference card cannot be seen just by looking at figures because we found the overall experience smoother throughout.
Bloody Nora batman, thats one scary overclock ! I snagged those apps, thanks for the heads up
I love Sapphires modded cards, those coolers rock my world. Wouldnt it be cool if AMD actually released these from now on with all their new mid/high end ranges?
Absolutely no chance they would be on reference cards, they cost too much. I like the thinking though. Hey with the Intel story that was on here a few days ago and the new reference coolers they are looking at, maybe the whole industry is shifting views on this?
Hats off to Sapphire again,was going to buy this but I held off for a bit even though I read a few good reviews about it. This is a wicked board. £230!! just ordered one
£230 is a wicked price. the ordinary card is £240 in a local store here.
Good price, would like to see CF figures for these. £460 for two of them, would be a good head to head against a GTX480 🙂
I think the 480 GTX would get its ass handed to it, then some, but would be interesting for sho.
I think the 5770 is better value though, ive seen some for £120 online, two of them would beat one of these.
Anyone seen a good price for one of these in Canada?
£349.99 on newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102881&cm_re=hd5850_toxic-_-14-102-881-_-Product
Canada? anyone know? best online place to buy?
Great review, thanks KG
Loved the review, thanks Gurus
Sapphire are great, wish more makers would use vapor x style cooling.
XFX are doing one which I think is sourced from the same company. check out this review. http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/xfx-hd5870-black-edition-review/
Read this review last night and didnt have time to comment. Its a great product as many reviews have already testifed to. Was interesting personally to see the drain figures at the wall.
not much stock available where I live. unfortunately as a bud of mine wants it.