14 DAY TRIAL // Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices is expected to up the performance ante with the release of a new Radeon graphics card, which will boast a dual-GPU design and will be launched under the Radeon HD 5970 branding. While the card is expected to be released sometime next month, no specific details have yet been leaked on the Internet. However, that isn't the case anymore, as the new card has just surfaced in a range of pictures that have been made available on the Internet, also bringing with them some details regarding its specifications.
The fellows over at Alienbabeltech.com have been lucky enough to get their hands on a couple of pictures and benchmark results of the upcoming board, which will most likely be branded the Radeon HD 5970, not the Radeon HD 5870X2, how it was previously expected. The pictures and benchmark results were provided by a source that mentioned this as an engineering sample of the upcoming board, which means things could look different when the card is officially launched.
Unfortunately, while the original post included the benchmark results of said card, these details were quickly pulled off the forum, at AMD's request, which also said that the results were not at all representative of the card's performance. Apparently, the board, drivers and BIOS of the board have not yet been finalized, but these details should soon be fixed, bringing the card closer to its official debut. AMD is apparently very confident in its product's performance capability, against NVIDIA's Fermi architecture.
For the time being, we have to settle with the details we currently have, namely that the card will feature the same dual-GPU on a single PCB solution that has been enabled on the previous generations of AMD dual-GPU cards, but with PCB that is 13.5 inches long and could provide some difficulties for users trying to install the card in a full-size tower case. The card uses a single fan with a maximum speed of 4700RPM, for cooling, while the entire monster is powered via one 8-pin and one 6-pin power connector.