As I'm sure Allen has noted... The "Hemlock" is out. That is, the 5970. Bummer being that it looks like no integrated circuitry.

Questions abound here.. Well, actually 3:

1) Is this thing likely to be as fast as Crossfired HD 5870's? It's clocked slightly slower at 725mhz to the HD5870 850mhz, but I imagine the two (non-integrated circuitry--- sob!) are sure to get along well. No benchmarks out there yet...

2) What's with the big request for integrated 7.1 audio? Guess I missed that one.

3) Yes, aware that of the problems with SLI.... but if you were going to choose this thing or Crossfire, well?

Thanks guys-

d.


Links:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1562028/sapphire-radeon-hd5970-hits-european-shops

http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17968

Per my prediction (in another thread) Allen was already aware of the 5970 launch date!

You have a very good question!

Will HD5970 be faster than two HD5870 in Crossfire?

We won't know until its tested, I guess. And, we know someone has probably already done the test under NDA and may publish on Wednesday.

Yes, it looks like they have not got the "2 GPU look like 1 GPU" circuit on this card. Perhaps, they improved the small amount of circuits they had on the HD4870 X2, perhaps not. I guess we must await that answer too -- maybe Wednesday if a "top site" does the report. Still, if they have improved the HD4870 X2 circuit, it might make the HD5970 faster than two Crossfired cards. If they haven't, then I am guessing 2 separate cards will be faster -- and probably more expensive.

All speculation on my part. I'm not predicting any particular outcome

Well Allen, I think at this point it could only be speculation!

Benchmarks will be interesting!

Cheers,

d.

Think I may have spotted the successor to my 3870x2.

do we have some glimpse about 5890? (or 5990 or other loll)