Advanced Micro Devices claims that its Radeon HD 4850 X2 graphics solution runs faster than NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 card. While, for a long time, the 4850 X2 was nothing else but news and rumors, the first samples of a such card come from Sapphire, which unveiled a few photos of the GPU, proving that it is under works, as we have already
said a few words on it.
According to AMD, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 will be better than GeForce GTX 280 in terms of performance. The standard specifications of the card state it featuring two Radeon HD 4850 GPUs clocked at 625MHz, paired with 2GB of 1GHz (2GHz effective) GDDR3 memory. The Sunnyvale company says that, although it has two GPUs, this card will have a power consumption of only 230W under full load.
The Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 card features four DVI ports, more than the standard 4870 X2 graphics, which suggests that the card comes with two outputs for each GPU. On the other hand, the card will not be able to exhaust heat directly through the back of the case. It is cooled by a dual-slot, dual-fan solution, a different venting system than the one found on the standard Radeon HD 4870 X2 boards.
The new card comes with two PCI-E power connectors, with eight and six pins respectively. The card also allows for quad CrossFireX setups with another card, since it features the well known CrossFire connector at the top. The Sapphire dual-GPU Radeon HD 4850 X2 already got listed at some on-line retailers, and is priced at 401.86 Euros.
The reference 4850 X2 card hasn't been released yet, which means that the price of Sapphire's solution will probably go down, especially since the Radeon HD 4870 X2 cards cost almost the same and offer more performance. AMD hasn't unveiled any official piece of information on a possible launch date for the card, but it is expected to do so in the near future.
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