14 DAY TRIAL // AMD's decision to provide some more cost-accessible versions of the Radeon HD 6900 Series graphics cards is definitely genuine, as proven by how listings of such models are already showing up online.
When they were released, the AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series graphics cards were promoted as high-end video boards.
However, it seems that Advanced Micro Devices may want to make them accessible even to mainstream users, although not exactly in their full might.
The original cards have a full 2 GB of GDDR5 memory, as well as support for DirectX 11 (obviously) and all of AMD's various features (CrossFireX, ATI Stream, etc.).
What Advanced Micro Devices will soon unleash is versions of those very same boards, with a single Gigabyte of such VRAM but no other changes to their other assets.
As if to confirm the report that brought this decision to light, online retailers have already begun to add early listings.
The one spotted not too long ago was of the Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 and, save for the memory amount, is quite identical to the reference model.
The 1 GB of GDDR5 is complemented by 1,408 stream processors and, in turn, services the graphics processing unit.
Said GPU works at 800 MHz, while the memory has an operating clock speed of 5,000 MHz.
There is also mention of multiple video outputs, although this is hardly surprising, knowing how practically all HD 6000 cards are designed.
To be more specific, in addition to dual-DVI and dual mini DisplayPort outputs, there is the 'obligatory' HDMI connector as well.
So far, the Sapphire HD 6950 has stuck to a price of 245.65 Euro, which is just a few Euro less than the 2 GB model.
Since the whole point is to make HD 6900 more affordable, the card should get significantly cheaper once availability ramps up.