Thursday, November 19th 2009
Galaxy Prepares Special Dual-GPU Accelerator
After AMD completed its mid-thru-high end product launches under its DirectX 11 compliant Radeon HD 5000 series, it looks like NVIDIA eased up restrictions for partners to design high-end dual-GPU accelerators. ASUS had launched a limited-edition accelerator making use of two GeForce GTX 285 GPUs, but limited quantities, and other factors which we're not aware of, may have influenced the company to sell it for over $1000 a piece. Galaxy, for one, is second in line, with a single-PCB dual-GPU graphics accelerator, which it reportedly plans to release before Christmas.
For now, the card exists only in its drawings and CAD designs. The PCB layout drawing shows the card have a layout similar to the single-PCB GeForce GTX 295. With space for 16 memory chips on the obverse side and a backplate in the CAD design, it is deduced that the card has 512-bit memory interfaces per GPU, and hence could be a dual GeForce GTX 285 accelerator, much like the ASUS MARS dual-285. The cooler looks to have independent coolers over each GPU with circular heatsinks that have radially-projecting fins, and a baseplate to cool other components. Galaxy wants this to be a Christmas special. Here's hoping it doesn't draw inspiration from the ASUS MARS as far as pricing is concerned.
Source:
Expreview
For now, the card exists only in its drawings and CAD designs. The PCB layout drawing shows the card have a layout similar to the single-PCB GeForce GTX 295. With space for 16 memory chips on the obverse side and a backplate in the CAD design, it is deduced that the card has 512-bit memory interfaces per GPU, and hence could be a dual GeForce GTX 285 accelerator, much like the ASUS MARS dual-285. The cooler looks to have independent coolers over each GPU with circular heatsinks that have radially-projecting fins, and a baseplate to cool other components. Galaxy wants this to be a Christmas special. Here's hoping it doesn't draw inspiration from the ASUS MARS as far as pricing is concerned.
30 Comments on Galaxy Prepares Special Dual-GPU Accelerator
Those fins don't really look tall enough for 2 GTX 285s.
Like that but with a heatsink that sits above the card, and below the card, both quite low profile heatsinks though.
Would be outstanding cooling performance.
Think Thermalright T-rad on both sides of the card.
Seriously, come with something new, or beat it. using money developing new cards is just plain stupid when the new ones around the corner.
The Die size is 30% larger than a 5870 aswell! its more expensive, hotter, less features and most importantly slower! jeez.
No flaming galaxy in general, they do innovate, but with old products its pretty much worthless, they should be looking ahead, and not back.
Here's that Powercolor card: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131100&cm_re=3870_x2-_-14-131-100-_-Product
It was a totally non-reference design that allowed them to make it quite a bit shorter, I think, though as you can see, it's taller when viewed on end.
I guess we'll see how effective the cooler is once it's released
They have more than a year of experience with the GT200(b) already.
Either way, be interesting to see what dual GPU card they come up with. If it's the 285 it will have to be around $550 or less to really have a market. I think that a dual GPU 275 would be the sweet spot, it would be faster than a 295, yet not cost much more, and faster than a 4870x2, pretty much making it the 2nd fastest single slot solution, and they could market it at a significantly lower cost.
I guess he is refering to a GTX 295 "Super Clocked" edition.
www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_Pro_Dual/3.html :pimp: