The Radeon HD 3870 X2 to Break One Teraflop - Fastest Card Ever

Graphics enthusiasts and overclocking junkies all over the world are awaiting for the upcoming Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics card. Once again, AMD managed to trick the users into forgiving its chain of mistakes during the last year with the upcoming availability of the fastest graphics card ever.

I have previously told you about the card, but the non-disclosure agreement between the tech journalists and the chip manufacturer was more than a pact with the 'you-know-who'. As the NDA is about to end, further details about the card complete the big picture. A whole lot of Radeon HD 3870 X2 pictures are already posted on the dedicated forums, but the majority of them have been taken during the Consumer Electronics Show.

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 video card features two 55-nanometer RV670 chips on the same board, joined by a PCI-Express 2.0 bridge to maximize the bandwidth. Although the card has been announced to be clocked at 775 MHz and 2250 MHz for the GPU and memory respectively, AMD realized that the dual-slot cooler can deal with higher-clock residual heat and raised the stake all the way to 825MHz. This may be the minimal clock (read official) of the Radeon 3870 X2, but I expect to see premium or AMP-ed versions of the graphics cards to reach 900 MHz.

Advanced Micro Devices clocked the card a little over 800 MHz in order to achieve more than one Teraflop of computing power. The 'more than generous' clock speed was possible due to the special cooler with three heatsinks: one for each of the two RV670 graphics cores and a larger one for the memory and the VRM. The only problem is the strategical positioning of the fan, in order to facilitate the airflow over the second GPU. Since the air already passed over the first core, it is expected to be very hot by the time it reaches the second one, which is likely to cripple the latter in terms of performance.

The Salland webshop is already listing the card for pre-order. It is called the "44430 Sapphire VGA Radeon HD 3870 X2 (Pre-Order) 1024 MB" and should hit the market on Wednesday. The initial retail price will be $615.35.

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