It has a custom backplate and may be better than PowerColor’s board

Oct 6, 2012 10:03 GMT  ·  By

As far as high-end graphics adapters go, there is one breed that always manages to stay above, performance-wise, even later-generation models, due to their sheer horsepower.

We are, of course, speaking of video boards with two graphics processing units instead of just one, like the one PowerColor released (sort of) a couple of days ago.

By “sort of” we mean that the card is officially out, but its price hasn't been provided yet.

Nevertheless, the specifications, at least, are clearly enough spelled out, something that Club3D's HD 7990 cannot claim.

Though the card has been revealed through Club3D's Facebook page, the performance numbers have yet to be exposed.

Fortunately, speculation will avail us where facts cannot, and at least we can, with reasonable accuracy, examine the cooler.

It is likely that the clock speed of the two Tahiti XT GPUs is 900 MHz, although an OC boost through the BIOS switch (located at the I/O panel) will push them a bit beyond that.

Meanwhile, the two memory interfaces of 384 bits (one for each GPU) should have 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM at the other end, for a total of 6 GB. The clock speed is of 5.5 GHz if past dual-Tahiti projects are anything to go by.

Furthermore, the triple-slot graphics card gets a 12+2+2 phase VRM and not one or two, but three 8-pin PCI Express power inputs on the PCB.

As for the cooler, it has several heatpipes, a large aluminum heatsink and three fans. High-end motherboards should have enough room between the primary and secondary PCI Express x16 slots to allow CrossFireX.

Alas, we have no idea when sales will begin or at what price. Buyers will probably need $800 or more (€800), but that's just our guess. It's a shame AMD doesn't have a “reference” 7990 that can act as a price setter.