The dual-GPU video adapter will come out in a few weeks

Jul 15, 2013 06:21 GMT  ·  By

Advanced Micro Devices may be dropping the Radeon HD 7990 dual-GPU video card, but the same cannot be said about its partners, or perhaps AMD won't be pulling the card as quick as we've feared.

Whichever the case may be, it is clear that at least one version of the dual-chip card will continue to sell for a while.

After all, it wouldn't make any sense for Sapphire to release the Radeon HD 7990 Atomic only to have to stop selling it immediately.

Not that the card has come out. It hasn't. But Sapphire is getting ready to officially introduce it, according to Expreview.

The report is actually about the first photos of the adapter, which show the Radeon HD 7990 Atomic with and without the cooler.

And it's definitely no ordinary heat eliminator, but a closed-loop liquid cooler composed of a 120 x 240 mm radiator, a reservoir+pump with coolant ports, and a full-coverage block.

The two 120 mm fans on the radiator can spin at 1,200 RPM (rotations per minute).

As for the dual-chip card itself, it uses a pair of 28nm Tahiti XT2 graphics processing units (GPUs), 6 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, a PLX PEX8747 PCI-Express gen 3.0 x48 bridge chip, and a 6+2+1 phase power supply (Vcc+VDDCI+MVDD).

An 18-phase VRM (voltage regulation module) powers the GPUs and everything else, and allows for overclocking as well, if owners really want to risk it.

True, Sapphire did include driver-MOSFETs, two 50A chokes per phase, LFPAK MOSFETs and Tantalum capacitors, but even the added endurance and stability won't cope with the clock tweaking if buyers go overboard.

Finally, three 8-pin PCI Express power connectors provide energy to the new device, cooler and all. Owners can use it alone or in CrossFireX mode with any video board from the Radeon HD 7900 series.

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Sapphire Radeon HD 7990 Atomic
Sapphire Radeon HD 7990 Atomic
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