Markham (ON) - AMD's graphics units will allow enthusiasts to run three and four graphics cards in their system with the release of the Catalyst 8.3 driver package, which will be released in March.

The next Catalyst release, however, will be version 8.2, which will be available on Wednesday, February 13, according to our sources. This version will be the last driver version not to support triple- and quad-GPUs, which will become the next graphics battleground for AMD and Nvidia.

Version 8.3 will surface, as the number indicates, in mid-March, but this release is actually not in line with other Catalyst revisions, since it was in heavy testing and coding for the past couple of months. Catalyst 8.3 is an important milestone for AMD in 2008 and might mean much more than just another driver. Catalyst 8.3 is finally going to deliver support for up to four GPUs within one system and we will be able to see whether multi-GPU setups have a future or whether this is just another a marketing bubble.

Expect hardware review sites to publish their Crossfire X reviews in the second week of March when Germany's CeBit concludes.