In a not-so-mind-blowing move, AMD is shrinking two of its current graphic chips and coupling them together to beat its competitor Nvidia in winning the hearts of hardcore gamers.
Nvidia's GTX 280, its fastest graphics board, currently outperforms
AMD's ATI Radeon HD 4870. But by combining two 4870 graphics processing units (GPU) onto one board, AMD says the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics board will equal or exceed the performance of the GTX 280.
As simple as the concept sounds, it's been a difficult task. In the past, companies that coupled GPUs were only able to achieve 1.5 times better performance. AMD hopes to get 1.8 times better performance by coupling the 4870 chips. A large advantage to combining two 4870s is that together they can use two gigabytes of memory, compared to standard high-end graphic boards that can only use one gigabyte, according to a story in CNET.
AMD is selling the 4870 X2 for $549. Nvidia countered by cutting the GTX 280's price to $499. Neeeeeer. Wouldn't it be funny if Nvidia directly retaliated by shrinking and combining two of its GPUs onto one board? And then AMD
fired back and combined four of its GPUs onto one board? And then
Nvidia fought back and combined six of its GPUs onto one board? And then AMD responded by -- OK, I'll stop.
