AMD Radeon¢â HD 7870 2GB GDDR5

About to buy a Dell XPS 8500.

It comes with a AMD Radeon¢â HD 7870 2GB GDDR5 Graphics card.

The specs on this Card say that it has:

¡áOpenGL 4.2 support

Does this mean that it is compaitble with Studio that uses OpenGL?

This computer-ease is killin’ me.

Yes, it should mean that it would be compatible with OpenGL and hence, also our software. In practice though the graphic card drivers that AMD/ATI provides for Windows-based systems are not always ideal for OpenGL display so if given a choice; select an NVidia graphic card over a comparable AMD/ATI one.

And for animation in general, avoid onboard graphic cards if possible because these are often lesser performing cards that also use your system’s RAM instead of dedicated video RAM. This advice goes mostly for desktop systems as most laptop graphic cards are onboard ones. For laptops, make sure it comes with a decent video card and not an onboard Intel card as these are often not up to the standards necessary for animation.