14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this month, Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices wanted to clarify the ongoing rumors according to which computer enthusiasts would be faced with another high-end graphics accelerator, coming in the form of the Radeon HD 4890 X2. According to the chip maker, the need for such a card was not immediately justified, especially given the current market potential of the company's HD 4870 X2. However, in now appears that you might actually see a new X2 card sooner rather than later. The new card will be based on AMD's latest GPU, the RV790, and will be commercially available as the Radeon HD 4890 X2.
In a recent video interview with Saša Marinkovic, AMD's product manager for consumer platforms, the fellows over at PC Games Hardware found out that AMD's AIB partners would be given the opportunity to make their own Radeon HD 4890X2. The support for such a card is already available, thanks to an 8+6 power configuration that is featured on the current reference boards. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that AMD will launch a reference version of said card, only that its AIB partners have the opportunity to distinguish themselves with the release of a new high-end card.
Currently, the biggest competitor for a possible HD 4890 X2 is NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 295, a dual-GT200b-based card that has been released at the beginning of the year. However, this card could soon see some hefty competition from a Radeon HD 4890X2 part, especially since there are reports indicating that partners could release dual-1GHz clocked cards, coupled with 2GB and 4GB of GDDR5 memory. According to a recent article on the brightsideofnews.com, these cards have the potential to be the most power-hungry on the market.
Despite the high number of rumors regarding the HD 4890X2, we cannot exactly say if and when such a card will be released. However, if rumors are anything close to reality, NVIDIA might just have something to worry about, again.