Rumor sites have been saying for weeks now that AMD is working on a next-generation, dual-GPU graphics card based on the same RV770 graphics processor as its Radeon HD 4870 and 4850. Today, the folks at Fudzilla have nabbed a picture of that card without its cooler.
The R700, or Radeon HD 4870 X2 as some call it, looks to have the same basic layout as the current Radeon HD 3870 X2: two GPUs joined by a PLX PCI Express switch chip, with eight memory chips on the front and eight on the back of the circuit board. Six-pin and eight-pin power connectors sit along the top right of the PCB, and a single CrossFire connector adorns the top left.
In this case, however, the PCIe switch looks significantly smaller (likely due to a die shrink), and the entire board is dyed black instead of red. The GPUs are smudged with thermal paste, but they look to have the same sizes and packages as their brethren on Radeon HD 4870 and 4850 cards.
Judging by how even dual 4850s chew through our suite of benchmarks, the 4870 X2 may be a very potent competitor to Nvidia's GeForce GTX 280. The report doesn't say when AMD plans to launch the card or how much it intends to charge for it, however.
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