who knows,if ati has a wild card "the rv800" set to perhaps june time frame then by all means i will buy the 5870x2
Ummm.. I know a LOT of non-reference ATI cards. nVidia is the one that has much more reference cards these days.. Check out cards like Gainward Golden Sample (4870 for example) and similar ones. I know that Gainward almost always makes their own PCB design a month or two after cards are out. Also, Sapphire often has non-reference cards, again, check HD4870 Vapor-X. Not only is power regulation different, they are producing 2GB cards as well. Than there is 4850X2, and so on and so on.. Sure, most cards ARE reference based, and again big part of non-reference cards just swap cooler, OC a bit, or add extra RAM. But there are still more than just ONE completely redesigned cards out there. Cheers!
yeah.... most non-reference boards tend to add more memory, or change a few components used (such as capacitors and such), rearrange some things in order to try to make the footprint of the card smaller.... but still.... i think this counts as one of the most radical design changes made anytime recently. http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?id=1997&cid=3&pg=2
just using it to say that it's not very common for manufacturers to do much to make their card unique other than adding more memory or changing some components on the card.
well toms hardware is reporting it too now http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ati-radeon-gpu-graphics,7531.html#xtor=RSS-181
Good luck to them. Every x2 everything they have released so far has been a complete half functional POS with an extremely high failure rate. I am inclined to say this iteration will be no different. And to make another one out of 2 cards that are only marginally better is kind of a joke. ATI needs to work on a NEW single GPU card and quit this x2 crap.
Hey, you're right. Intel and AMD should quit that dual and quad core BS they've been pulling recently too.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ati-radeon-gpu-graphics,7531.html#xtor=RSS-181 NVIDIA is the one that can sit back and relax as the 4890X2 will directly compete against the already available GTX 295 (which is 2x GTX 275). Just compare the 4890 vs GTX 275, NVIDIA has nothing to worry about except to keep improving driver support. ATI however must release a refresh to try and close the gap to the top spot GPU in the world. However we all know NVIDIA is releasing a 295 single PCB revision in May, so I guess that is what THG is referring to (but the single PCB will be identical in performance to the dual PCB). I for one don't see why ATI would bother to invest all the money it requires to redesign a dual GPU solution (especially to add 4Gb), when the 4870X2 is only marginally behind. This is only proof that the 295 has ruffled those red feathers
Its failure rate is also around the industry standard, regardless of what you hear. Look up 4870s on newegg and check the number of 0 egg reviews. Compare this to any other cards, you'll see similar numbers despite higher compatibility requirements of the 4870x2.
maybe u are right but there is no way that a single pcb 295 will be able to fight the 4890x2 nad be as same as dual 295
I don't see why not, the 295 is literally two GTX 275's in one PCI-E slot. The GTX 275 and 4890 are exactly balanced (each trades off wins depending on game) and the dual PCB 295 has shown it is just as fast as 275 in SLI (which is to be expected). NVIDIA is doing a single PCB revision to raise their profits, not to change the performance. I don't see why NVIDIA has anything to worry about with keeping the current 295 performance identical, ATI has a 50% FPS gap to close between the 4870X2 and GTX 295 in certain apps, while others are of course less drastic.
why would a dual GPU card have higher clocks than it's single GPU brother? It makes no sense what so ever.
who knows maybe to be the world first 1ghz double gpu, o yeah and maybe they devised some new way to cool those puppies p.s only time will tell but i think that the x2 will regain the crown
