14 DAY TRIAL // The countdown has begun, and we are getting closer to the release of ATI's "Spartan," the dual-GPU Radeon HD 4870 X2. For those who are not in the know, this is a card expected to be released tomorrow, when it will finally take NVIDIA's crown in the high-end graphics market and, at the same time, position AMD as the new leading manufacturer of high-end video cards.
The soon-to-be unveiled graphics monster is one of the most anticipated products of this summer, that is, after AMD has already succeeded to provide users with one of the best graphics cards on the market. The HD 4870 wasn't capable of topping NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 in terms of performance, but it sure did bring to the table an impressive performance level for a considerably lower price tag, compared with NVIDIA's offer. Based on this RV770 graphics processor, the Sunnyvale-based chip maker has decided to roll out a new card, which will feature two of these GPUs on one single PCB.
The result is nothing short of a graphics monster ready to take on any of the latest high-end games with the help of its 1600 Stream processors. The card is expected to feature 2GB of GDDR5 graphics memory and support for CrossFire X, and PCI-Express 2.0 interfaces. The GPU speed for the reference card will be set at 750MHz, while the memory will work at the 3600MHz.
Despite the fact that it hasn't been officially announced just yet, the company's board partners are ready to deliver their own implementations of the new GPU. According to a recent post on TCMagazine, Taiwanese manufacturer MSI plans to roll out two new models based on AMD's flagship graphics card, one of which will provide a boost of performance through a factory-overclocked GPU.
These first arrivals will be codenamed R4870X2-T2D2G and R4870X2-T2D2G-OC. Both cards will feature 2GB of GDDR5 memory, but the OC model will come with a GPU speed of 780MHz, 30MHz higher than the reference model. Currently, there are no details regarding pricing but, after tomorrow's release, we should know for certain which manufacturer has the best offer.
