ATI Radeon HD 5870 X2, HD 5850 X2 spotted
updated 01:20 pm EDT, Mon September 28, 2009
New dual-core ATI Radeon graphics cards seen
The ATI Radeon HD 5870 x2 and a new 5850 X2 graphics card have been spotted in photos recently. The former has been leaked earlier, and should be out on the market sometime in October. The photos show the card is ultra-long, raising questions as to whether it will fit into mid-sized or large tower cases. The single-core HD 5870 is 11 inches long, with estimates from the photos putting the dual-core version at perhaps 12 or 12.5 inches.
The photos reveal one prototype of the 5870 X2 has a built-in square-like fan shroud and generous venting on one side. The 5850 X2 has dual circular fans over the chips but no shroud, indicating a third-party manufacturer's specs rather than ATI's own factory-issue dress.
Little is known about the GPUs, other than that the 5870 X2 will have 800MHz engine clock speeds along with 4.8GHz RAM. With the 5870 X2 a faster version of the 4870 X2, which had 750MHz core speeds and 3.6GHz memory, the 5850 X2 is also likely to improve upon the 4850 X2 it would replace, though the gains are unspecified at this time. The HDMI connection visible on the 5870 X2 is likely an option, as with other ATI graphics cards in recent memory.
Pricing for either new dual-core card is not known, as are ship dates other than the October release estimate for the 5870 X2. [via HardwareCanucks]
ATI Radeon HD 5870 X2
ATI Radeon HD 5850 X2
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Mar 2009
Large leap in performance.
If anything of what I've been reading is true these cards are quite impressive and with the release of the i7 which also have an impressive performance gain over the last iteration of chips this could be a good time to buy a new PC (which is what I'm thinking of doing). Now only if PC games were not ports of console versions we could actually take advantage of this new hardware. : /