PowerColor Eyefinity 12 HD 5970 Inbound

Though there have been a high number of enthusiast product launches over the years, few have been able to spell 'overkill' quite as quaintly as what PowerColor has in store. Whether because large display areas are the current trend, or because the company is trying to see what it would take to drive even the most hard-core of enthusiasts to bankruptcy, the graphics card maker is almost ready to demonstrate its latest beast. Twelve-headed beast to be exact, since that is the number of video outputs that the upcoming HD 5970 has.

The soon-to-be-showcased otherworldly monster has 12 mini DisplayPort outputs, which means that the few inhabitants on the planet with too much money to spare may have finally found a use for all the extra cash. All that is required to make the best of this card is enough money to buy the adapter, along with 12 monitors and even build a support array. End-users may also need to purchase a new home or break down a few walls in case they don't have a high- and wide-enough wall to mount said displays upon.

Of course, in order to be capable of delivering high-quality video to all 12 screens at once, the card must have been built with significant resources. In addition to having two Cypress GPUs, there are 4GB of GDDR5, 2GB for each GPU. The memory interface is of 2 x 256 bits. What is more peculiar is the actual design. In order to reach 12 ports, PowerColor added a so-called daughter card, which provides the extra six outputs. This means that end-users will be able to simply remove said card if they so wish.

When the daughter card is 'active,' the video board takes up three PCI Express slots instead of two. This will make it rather difficult to take advantage of the Quad CrossFire support. Unfortunately, no other details are known at this time, so end-users will have to wait until early June for the clocks and the price point.