Back in August, when AMD officially introduced its latest flagship graphics card, the dual-GPU HD 4870 X2 monster, the company was said to be planning yet another dual graphics processor solution, namely the HD 4850 X2, which is about to surface the market. The new card is expected to deliver just enough performance to keep NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 on its knees, but with a price tag that should be more affordable than AMD's current dual-GPU graphics monster.

 

According to recent rumors, the company should soon be announcing the availability of the new card, as its AIB partners are getting ready to finish their own designs of the product. Sapphire Technologies, one of AMD's largest board partners, appears to be getting close to officially unveil its new HD 4850 X2 graphics cards, which has already surfaced on the Internet.

 

From what the leaked picture reveals, technology enthusiasts should be expecting a real monster, as this card comes with two GPUs that need some serious cooling. This is where Sapphire's solution of equipping its upcoming Radeon graphics card with a dual-fansink, dual-slot cooler, fits in really nicely. Ultimately, this custom cooler should effectively dissipate the heat over the two GPUs.

 

No word yet on specific clock speeds or amount of memory, as the company is about to officially introduce the new card. However, we can assume that it will be equipped with 2GB of either GDDR3 or GDDR5 memory, as Sapphire (along with other ATI partners) is allowed to come out with its own design of the product.

 

At this point, there are no details on the official release date for the new card, but given the amount of leaked information that has recently surfaced the Internet, we might not be very far from such an event. The card should ultimately further improve ATI's market position over its competitor NVIDIA.