AMD Shows Off Its Radeon HD 7990
AMD’s upcoming reference design dual-GPU graphics card, the Radeon HD 7990, was unveiled at the company’s GDC press briefing on Tuesday night. While OEMs such as PowerColor have been making cards using two Radeon HD 7970 GPUs and sporting the HD 7990 moniker, the cards have been custom designs whereas the card shown here is a reference design straight from AMD. As is their tradition, AMD held their cards close to their chest when it came to specifics on the card.
“This is the first public showing,” said Matt Skynner, general manager of AMD’s graphics business unit. “We’re not saying much about it other than it’s two series-7900 GPUs on a single card, and it’s whisper quiet.”
Going by the code-name Malta, AMD first mentioned the HD 7990 at this year’s CeBit trade show in Germany. This was the first showing of the card, revealing three large cooling fans which blow air over a heatsink which runs the length of the card. The Radeon HD 7990 will compete with NVIDIA’s top end cards, the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 690 and the single-GPU GeForce GTX Titan.
The Radeon HD 7990 is expected to land in the second quarter of 2013, as AMD plans to release the next generation Radeon HD 8000-series family of cards in the second half on this year.
