Asus Ares GPU packs raw power of two 5870s in one kickass package [RoG]

For hardcore PC gaming enthusiasts, there exists the ATI Radeon HD 5970, which essentially is a dual-GPU version of the AMD's fastest single graphics card, the ATI Radeon HD 5870. But while the 5970 has the same number of stream processors and memory as a standard 5870, its core and memory are running at 15 percent and 20 percent slower speeds, respectively. Not quite the true dual-graphics solution AMD fans would like it to be.

Enter the Asus Ares, a true dual-5870 solution that appears to belong to the company's Republic of Gamers brand of PC-related hardware. According to the folks from HotHardware, Asus has combined two 5870s back-to-back in the Ares GPU, enabling them to run at full speed and work from a single PCI-E graphics card slot.

Preliminary tests have shown that it pretty much beats the HD 5970 in 3DMark Vantage. The only question now is, is it still a good product when you take heat and power consumption into account? Asus hasn't mentioned when and where they will launch the dual-5870 Ares GPU first, so we probably won't find out until then.

Source: [HotHardware]

Dual-GPU HD 5950 coming from AMD in Q1 2010?

Rumor has it that AMD is planning to release another dual-GPU graphics card and will call it the Radeon HD 5950, a slightly less powerful version of the world's most powerful graphics card at the moment, the Radeon HD 5970. It is said that the Radeon HD 5950, if and when it comes to market, will be more or less a dual version of the existing Radeon HD 5850, with its GPU clock sitting at somewhere between 650 and 675MHz. Memory clock is also pegged at 3600MHz to 4000MHz, though that's just a rough estimate. It looks like AMD is going to get another winner, but it's not something everyone is going to be able to afford judging by the current HD 5970 pricing.

Source: [NordicHardware, Tweaktown]

Radeon HD 5970 GPU set to wipe the floor with competition, starting now

Today, the Radeon HD 5970, AMD's dual-GPU flagship graphics card, becomes the new GPU to beat, flooring the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 in a set of early benchmarks posted online. This comes in the form of confidential AMD presentation slides which show the Radeon HD 5970's performance in games at max resolution (2560x1600) and max settings compared with the GeForce GTX 295. The full specifications of the Radeon HD 5970 have also been revealed now, and it looks like it's going to be the ultimate graphics card money can buy for quite a while.