Similar to the HD3870X2, AMD has taken two HD4870 GPUs and put them on one PCB, effectively creating a one-card CrossfireX solution:
The reception of the HD4850 and the HD4870 has been very good and these GPU’s even got NVIDIA to lower their prices quite a lot just to be able to compete. All that really has been missing is a card that could go up directly against the GTX280 and today we are previewing the card that wants to do exactly that; the HD4870X2, codenamed R700.
..While we still want to wait with our final judgement on the HD4870X2 until we got a production board in our hands our initial impression is that this seems to be the card that finally lets AMD compete directly with NVIDIA for the performance crown. As far as we can see from these first tests the HD4870X2 easily will be able to hold its own against the GTX280, in some cases even beating it by a large margin. It is no wonder that NVIDIA got worried and, almost in panic, had to dump the prices of the GTX260 and GTX280 so quick after its launch. It will be interesting to see how AMD prices the card compared to the GeForce GTX280.
