Must trade in current 2GB 4870 X2 for 4GB 4890 X2...

Must trade in current 2GB 4870 X2 for 4GB 4890 X2...

But will it play Cry *gets shot*

I wish these GPUs were less power hogs to achieve such levels of performance. More efficiency using the same amount of power would've been better, from both AMD and Nvidia.

want to see what nvidia has to offer since i have the 90 day step up program on my evga card

Besides Crysis is there any game out there that needs that much power? Not being sarcastic just curious.

Probably not. But it's an easy futureproof.

I agree with the power efficiency and heat efficiency. I think that to me is more important than speed boosts. Just the thought of a dual slot just makes me cringe since the next GPU upgrade I'm getting most likely will take up 2 slots and that's leaving me feel uneasy because that means sacrificing a PCI slot. I already lost my only PCIe slot because of my heatsink controller needing the shortest path to outside my case.

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.

FSX would still gobble up that card alive!

"both GPUs running at least at 1 GHz core clock speed"
"customers should be seeing 2 GB and 4 GB cards"

HOLY JESUS CHRIST! 1 4890 @ 1Ghz clock speed beats anything the GTX 285 can do even if it is OC'd! This might not only be the fastest card, but 2 of them might be the fastest setup!

The heat these things will produce will be large. I guess it is time to get another GTX 480 radiator...

Though not from a reliable source, I did read that Nvidia is about to tape out their GT300 processor line.

Well Nvidia will probably take an "elegant" solution to the problem, for those who remember 7800GT and it's external power solution i need not say more.
Take a look at the next GTX 480
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P [...] templete=2

Nvidia just figured out how to put 2 gpu's on a single pcb and needed a die shrink to do it. ATI is about to roll out 40nm which will put an end to Nvidia's dominance. Nvidia needs a platform, or they cant compete with Intel and AMD.

The problem with futureproofing your machine is that you're spending $600 now for a card that will be $300 when you start needing it. Personally, I'm happy with my GTX 285 1 GB, which does everything I need it to do rather well. No, it's not the best out there, but the diminishing returns for performance vs price at the bleeding edge is too rich for my blood.

4 GIGS OF RAM though?! Holy frak! What needs that?

a real joke to get more money ... 4gb of Vramn .. kiddin me ... useless.

both nvidia and ati are funny ... they just OC them last generation cards to get a better than the last one ... and put 2 of them on 1 card ... god i miss the time when ATI and NV got a real fight ... GF4 TI, ATI 9800, 7800GTX, 8800GTX etc ... it was a real fight .. now its a kids one ..

Couple two together in Cross Fire and we might finally see Crysis on Very high, 8XAF, 4XAA, 2560 x 1600 @ 40+ FPS.

This beast would still operate under 300W, as per JEDECs PCIe standards. 4870X2 is already at 260W so this new card should be around the same...

Could this be a 40nm device?? Because it feels doubtfull that they could squeeze out such high clocks for both cores and remain in that power envelope with a 55nm chip.

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...

Its really closer to 2GB effective (2 GPUs in crossfire, remember)...which CAN be used by GTA4, if nothing else. Maxing out the draw distance uses about 1.5GB VRAM at the highest settings.

whatever happened to the 32nm die shrink proscess??? RV740?... or was it 40nm?.. i thought that was their direction?

I also bumped into some net report that gtx 295 will be shrunk to one slot... dunno if it was just rumours... think of the possibility of gtx295x2 in a dual slot design... now that's a beast...

i wonder why amd/ati still cant lower their watt usage since nvidia's card can do dual slot design with just the watt usage of 1 slot..

what ever it is... it's good for us... since we're going to see alot more price drops... i know that's the trend... but now the price drops went down in speeds we never imagine before...

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

I hope it lowers the price of the 4870x2. Idk if it will, but a 50$ price drop would be awesome.

haha... to the mainstream.. that sure wont happen...

Futureproofing was always a luxury reserved for those able to afford it. I'm sure we all agree though that a pair of 4890's clocked at 1ghz at 2gb GDDR5 (what!?) each would leave your computer some room for Crysis-level graphics, provided that video game creators continue to disregard the performance capabilities of computers and graphics card ._.;;

Those were 40nm cards and they are coming out soon latest early May. Max TDP of 80W but more performance than a HD 4830 and almost the performance of a HD 4850. GDDR5 for $100 bucks?
I'm waiting for that card.

Actually there is just two 4870X2's now and 1 of them is out of stock.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 04870%20X2

These must be coming very, very soon.

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

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.

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

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!

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.