AMD Radeon HD 4890 X2's Coming

[TheViper]

[citation][nom]eklipz330[/nom]you know, i kinda saw this coming... if you go to newegg, you can see only 2 4870x2's... so they're pretty much killing their stock before bringing in the new guns, probably gonnabe at the same price[/citation]
Actually there is just two 4870X2's now and 1 of them is out of stock.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048%201305520549%20106792627%201067940679&name=Radeon%20HD%204870%20X2

These must be coming very, very soon.

 

[godwhomismike]

OMG!!! A 4GB 4980x2 video card. This I must have at all costs.

 

[warezme]

[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom]A follow up to the GTX 295 after ATI releases the 4890x2? Unlikely. It took NVidia a year to dual-GPU their GT200 series (needed a die shrink first), and even then they had to underclock the chip. I'm not sure NVidia has anything else up their sleeve. They blew their wad with the GTX280. I think the GT200 is as fast as its going to be, have to wait for the next generation.[/citation]

I think they may have underclocked initially but later found their yields to be of high quality since both the 280's and 295's from personal experience have a lot of headroom to OC and still maintain decent temps. The same is fairly true of the 4000 series ati cards so either side could ramp up speeds and gain lots of performance without doing much of anything else.

 

[jrsdav]

The specs on this might not be so redundant when DirectX 11 is thrown in the mix.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]mlcloud[/nom]Probably not. But it's an easy futureproof.[/citation]
It might be better to buy 2 mid segment (say $150) cards,one now,and one eg: 2 years down the road, than buy a graphics card this powerful (I estimate +$300), that will fall in the $120 category 2 years from now anyways.

What I'm saying is:
Unless if you need the raw power now, just go with what is second or third; much cheaper; and buy a similar card like this in 2 years or so!
You'll end up wasting less money that way!

 

[avericia]

gtx 295 lvl performance is required for anyone that runs 1900x1200 or above imo because I have sli 65nm and 55nm gtx 260core 216 sc and I had 1 card from november until a month ago and adding the second card to = 295 I can now play Dawn of war 2 on full blast hitting a minimum of 25fps in the most intense 3vs3 battle with things exploding everywhere. Anything less then that graphics wise would lag.

My cpu is a q9550@3.2 on a 780iftw so it shouldn't bottle neck my cards too bad, 3.7 gets another 5-7% out of my cards but the northbridge on my board gets too hot.

 

[Guest]

Ow,any commenting on the introduction price?

The $300 was just to clarify a situation, not to say this card will actually be sold for $300 in the stores.. I'd have no clue how much this card would go for...

 

[alfaalex101]

If I had a job, I would never buy one of these. I'd buy two. When you get to this level of insanity - you have to go all the way. Two 4890 X2's in crossfire. You'll never need to buy a GPU again.

(Hmm, I think that's what we said when the X800 came out)

 

[oicw]

[citation][nom]marokero[/nom]If AMD or Nvidia make drivers available to use these cards for 3D content creation, many programs like Maya, 3D Studio, Lightwave, etc, might be able to take advantage of the memory. But that would cannibalize their Firepro and Quadro sales, so who knows...[/citation]

Good point. Having 2/4 Gb on their "consumer" line will make it easier for them to produce the "pro" versions, as most FireGLs are nothing more than Radeons with driver tweaks for OpenGL performance. Hope somebody will figure out how to softmod a 4890x2 in the future; the $700 will be dirt cheap compared to its $4799 FireGL version!

 

[bigpoppastuke]

Not "future proof" at all. Don't forget, DirectX 11 is coming out soon.

 

[eddieroolz]

When the 4890 was being introduced, didn't Tom's say that a 4890 X2 part was unlikely?

But now, it happened!!

 

[eklipz330]

[citation][nom]alfaalex101[/nom]If I had a job, I would never buy one of these. I'd buy two. When you get to this level of insanity - you have to go all the way. Two 4890 X2's in crossfire. You'll never need to buy a GPU again.(Hmm, I think that's what we said when the X800 came out)[/citation]

no but this time you would REALLY never need another video card.[this is what you'll say to convince yourself to buy these]

 

[my_name_is_earl]

look like this baby will be very limited in quantity because only board partners make them and not direct through ATI :[

 

[dimaf1985]

Previously, AMD stated that there wasn't a real market need for something beyond the HD 4870 X2, since AMD thoroughly felt that its top of the line offering was already leading the competition.

Um, leading the competition? How? the 295 is clearly faster. It's like AMD is pretending that card doesnt exist. Anyways, this is insane. On top of shelling out like $700 for a card, you better have a 1000W PSU which is another $300. Unless you have a screen that supports 2560x1600 (which is probably like 2 people) then this is completely pointless.

 

[Guest]

I think it's the battle to remain king of the hill.

If you're in the mid segment you can enjoy in the shadow of these monstercards.
By the time you'll need a card like this,they probably have a 32nm watered down version of this card (or a next version) available for 1/3th the price, that might be as good, or maybe even outperforms this card!

I think these cards start to make sense when you start gaming with multi-monitors.

 

[thepinkpanther]

i would pay $600 for this card if released 5 months ago, i think their too close to the next series to launch a new card.

 

[alentor]

[citation][nom]fonzy[/nom]Besides Crysis is there any game out there that needs that much power? Not being sarcastic just curious.[/citation]
thats the point theres no such game... im using sapphire 4870 OCed i run crysis on high/very high settings with 25~35 farm rate, i know its not high but it worth it, the price to the performance. i dont see a reason for 4890X2, only if to beat GTX 295 ;/

 

[Pei-chen]

[citation][nom]my_name_is_earl[/nom]look like this baby will be very limited in quantity because only board partners make them and not direct through ATI :[[/citation]
Not-built-by-ATI is the only way these cards could fit within the 300w power envelop. Gigabyte, ASUS, and MSI's custom PCB cards usually uses a lot less power than ATI's Sapphire designed PCB.

 

[random1283]

1. It will probably only be saphire like the 4850X2
2. Clocks will go down not up, I mean think about it if 1 4890 has a TDP of 190w it is way over 300w jedec standard.
3. I will only be very cloce to the 295 but not anything outstanding performance wise.

oh and yes I know that the 4870 has a 160w tdp, but you can only cut consumption so much.

 

[crockdaddy]

Yeah I feel pretty future proofed with my sub 150$ ATI 4850 thank you very much. My time horizon for card replacement is 12 months ... so I will buy whatever 150$ is out at the time and likely be very happy for it.

 

[voodooaddict]

I hope it comes out just for the expected price drop and user 4870 X2.

 

[thelolinator]

[citation][nom]random1283[/nom]1. It will probably only be saphire like the 4850X22. Clocks will go down not up, I mean think about it if 1 4890 has a TDP of 190w it is way over 300w jedec standard. 3. I will only be very cloce to the 295 but not anything outstanding performance wise.oh and yes I know that the 4870 has a 160w tdp, but you can only cut consumption so much.[/citation]
This is ATI's second generation 55nm fabrication processed chip? So, I'll give an example---> C2Q vs Core i7 ---> 1st Gen 45nm vs 2nd Gen 45nm. Now the Core i7 920, completely thrashes all of the C2Q's in almost everything, so why can't ATI do the same? And, as the article said

its partners

So it won't be exclusively for Sapphire..

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Is a conroe at 3.4ghz enough to power this card? and will it be crippled if used in a pcie v1 board (p35) ?

 

[thelolinator]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]Is a conroe at 3.4ghz enough to power this card? and will it be crippled if used in a pcie v1 board (p35) ?[/citation]
It will definitely be crippled by the PCI-E 1 board, not sure about the C2D - What model?

 

[neiroatopelcc]

it's an e6600 @ 380x9 on a ga-p35-ds4 board (see my profiles pc conf)