Tuesday, November 26th 2013
Hawaii-based Dual-GPU Graphics Card Codenamed "Vesuvius"
AMD is serious about putting two 6.2 billion-transistor "Hawaii" GPUs onto a single board, in a future dual-GPU graphics card it reportedly codenamed "Vesuvius," after the famous volcanic peak just off the coast of Naples. The card will feature two "Hawaii" GPUs with core configurations that are unknown at this point, but the source suggests it's in the maxed out "XT" configuration. AMD could, of course tinker with clock speeds, compared to the GHz-range Radeon R9 290X. We can't even imagine how AMD will handle power and thermals, given how its handling of the two on the R9 290X has been less than exemplary.
Source:
VR-Zone
32 Comments on Hawaii-based Dual-GPU Graphics Card Codenamed "Vesuvius"
A single PCB providing enough power delivery for two hungry GPUs? I'd suggest that the marketing would move from measuring the PCB by layers to centimeters.
Given the lukewarm (at best) reception given the HD 7990 by OEM's and its associated localized heat issues, Crossfire scaling variability, high initial price point, and lack of general availability for some time- presumably due to strict binning, a dual card would seem to pose more minuses than pluses on the PR front.
Also presumably, a dual GPU card should at least approximate the performance of two single cards in CFX...which pretty much means three 8-pin PCI-E power plugs, which negates it's use by OEMs. Your target market then becomes consumers willing to pay more for a lower performing, hotter, and noisier duallie over two separate boards.
ignore the troll
Jokes aside, I don't get why they want to make a dual-GPU version. Unless they plan on mounting an all-in-one hybrid cooler (water + ye regular air cooling) on the thing for the reference design. Sure, this thing would be monstrously powerful. But the noise and temperatures would be equally monstrous. Hope they don't pull a GTX 590 "Firecracker", though.