ATI is currently rocking a significant lead in the DirectX 11 space—it’s blazing a trail where it has, in the past, often followed suit. “But Chris, ATI gave us DirectX 10.1!” And look how pervasive or impactful that reversed out to be.This time it’s different, though. ATI and Nvidia both agree that DirectX 11 is the API that’ll change the figurative game. Has it yet? Is this boat so soon sailing off into the sunset? Decidedly not. ATI’s own schedule of DirectX 11-compatible software lists three titles currently shipping with support, three more slated for Q1, and two more expected in 2010.


The positive reality is that ATI is out in front, and Nvidia brings up the rear this time around. But its tardiness means very little in the big picture (so long as you’re an enthusiast, and not a shareholder).The real values in ATI’s Radeon HD 5800-series lineup, as it stands today, are gaming performance in the more pervasive DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 titles, Eyefinity, and the family’s handling of high-def audio/video content.

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And while today’s preview of Nvidia’s GF100 graphics processor (the first model based on the company’s Fermi architecture) is full of point covering the chip’s building blocks and architectural philosophies, we’re left to make trained guesses on how a productized GF100 will stand up to its competition.We know that, through Nvidia Surround, the company will enable multi-monitor (more than two display) gaming. But it’s only enabling two outputs per card, so three will require an SLI configuration.


That sounds like it could get expensive, especially since I'm running a shape like that using a single $290 Radeon HD 5850.We also now know a lot more about the imaginations dedicated to gaming within GF100. Given this, it’s quite reasonable to assume that a graphics card based on GF100 will be significantly faster than a card centering on ATI’s Cypress. Nvidia also admitted to us that it’d be more power-hungry than GT200—the ASIC driving GeForce GTX 200-series boards.