PowerColor Designs Radeon HD 5970 4GB Graphics Card with 12 Display Outputs

[btarunr]

While major AMD AIBs have given their creativity wings with the Radeon HD 5970, coming up with uber-high end graphics cards, PowerColor joined the party with its latest creation in the making: a graphics card with 12 display outputs! The design wires all six TMDs from each of the two GPUs into DisplayPort connectors, letting users make large Eyefinity display-heads. Each of the two GPUs is connected to 2 GB of GDDR5 memory making the total memory on board to 4 GB. The card is expected to be the thickest among others' HD 5970 designs, spanning over three expansion slots (two slot-spaces occupied by 12 mini-DP ports and one with the exhaust). PowerColor may choose Computex as the ideal launch-vehicle for this monstrosity. More details are awaited, but there's a Frankenstein picture of the card to go on.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[DanishDevil]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. That's not a mirror.

 

[Fourstaff]

The first 3 slot card?

 

[Xenomorphh]

The first 3 slot card?

Nah

Gainward already had 1.

HD4870x2 golden sample.

This is btw a monster card.. love too see it running bad company 2 on 12 screens.

 

[Scrizz]

nope, not the first three slot card.
last gen there was the R700 revolution by Palit

 

[Yellow&Nerdy?]

Do you really need that? You would have to sell your house, kids and one and a half kidney to afford 12 monitors. And it's not practical at all.

 

[Fourstaff]

Do you really need that? You would have to sell your house, kids and one and a half kidney to afford 12 monitors. And it's not practical at all.

No sir, but the CIA will gladly sponsor you to do some surveillance.

 

[mdm-adph]

The first 3 slot card?

First four-slot, maybe.

 

[the54thvoid]

It looks like an April fools. Which it OBVIOUSLY isn't but can you imagine this thing a year ago? People would be like, 'yeah, right, pull the other one.'

Overkill unless you own an evil mansion from whence to spread evildoings across the globe and you need to monitor your 12 evil henchmen doing nefarious things.

Also, how big a freaking room would you need?

 

[OnBoard]

It's good for pluggin and unpluggin displays without powering down. If one output blows you still got too many left

But it's no different than say four 5770 cards crossfired, You'd have same 12 outputs, no need for adapters and also costs less

 

[CDdude55]

Man, that's awesome., It's overkill, but awesome none the less.

 

[fatguy1992]

Thats pretty awesome, not needed for almost anyone but still cool.

 

[xaira]

might buy 1 of these when i decide sell my goldman shares, lucky thing i bought december 08 ; )

 

[GSG-9]

Not to mention you need to buy 12 display port monitors not just monitors, so your paying more for less, or you need to buy 12 Active DP to HDMI/DVI adapters. Either way its a lot of shitty conversion. OnBoard is right, your better off with dual 5770s, it only costs one slot more and less cash.

I do love the idea though, hook it up to a few 24 (inch) monitors that go for $200 each, $2400 worth of monitors later, a $200 increase in your power bill each month and no one you know will ever touch your super bowl tv setup...or WOW if your into that..

 

[HalfAHertz]

Congratulations to the two people that will buy this!

 

[KainXS]

it makes sense, 1 5870 eyefinity can handle six displays so 2 on one pcb should do 12, probably targeted to the business market, and its a good idea

 

[Black Panther]

If this trend goes on soon we'd soon end up with graphic cards bigger and heavier than the rest of the hardware inside the case...

Why haven't manufacturers designed a card similar to a motherboard technology in upgradeability -- imagine having a gpu 'socket/s' so you can upgrade to a more powerful gpu, and vram 'slots' so you can add vram as you go along.

 

[will]

Could you crossfire 2 of these and get 24 display output??? Can you imagine, 24 screens....

 

[Wile E]

Not to mention you need to buy 12 display port monitors not just monitors, so your paying more for less, or you need to buy 12 Active DP to HDMI/DVI adapters. Either way its a lot of shitty conversion. OnBoard is right, your better off with dual 5770s, it only costs one slot more and less cash.

I do love the idea though, hook it up to a few 24 (inch) monitors that go for $200 each, $2400 worth of monitors later, a $200 increase in your power bill each month and no one you know will ever touch your super bowl tv setup...or WOW if your into that..

No, from what I recall, only 1 monitor per GPU needs to be DisplayPort. The rest can use passive adapters.

 

[cadaveca]

Eyefinity 6 cards only supply 2x dvi outputs. the remaining 4 displays must be displayport. Not too sure on the passive adapter thing..that would definately be nice. If they pulled that off, I jsut might go with a wall of 12 screens..3x4 24-inch..

As if. would have to wire the house specifically for the system.

 

[cauby]

just one word: overkill...

 

[GSG-9]

Why haven't manufacturers designed a card similar to a motherboard technology in upgradeability -- imagine having a gpu 'socket/s' so you can upgrade to a more powerful gpu, and vram 'slots' so you can add vram as you go along.

They did it with Laptops, they were called MX sockets or something. It would almost have to be Nvidia and AMD making those decisions, manufactures normally just copy the pcb layouts designed by AMD and Nvidia. If Manufacturers made a socket AMD and Nvidia may end up killing product lines(previously released pcbs/upgradable graphic cards) due to incompatibility as AMD/Nvidia tweak pcbs between releases.

No, from what I recall, only 1 monitor per GPU needs to be DisplayPort. The rest can use passive adapters.

I thought any of the ports that were DP had to be converted with an active adapter; it was just that only one of the three ports on the 5770-5870s we were talking about were Display Ports, the other two were HDMI and DVI. I could be wrong though I'm not known for my excellent understanding of such things.

 

[Wile E]

They did it with Laptops, they were called MX sockets or something. It would almost have to be Nvidia and AMD making those decisions, manufactures normally just copy the pcb layouts designed by AMD and Nvidia. If Manufacturers made a socket AMD and Nvidia may end up killing product lines(previously released pcbs/upgradable graphic cards) due to incompatibility as AMD/Nvidia tweak pcbs between releases.




I thought any of the ports that were DP had to be converted with an active adapter; it was just that only one of the three ports on the 5770-5870s we were talking about were Display Ports, the other two were HDMI and DVI. I could be wrong though I'm not known for my excellent understanding of such things.

I was actually mistaken. Only 2 ports per gpu support passive adapters, while the other 4 require DP or active adapters. I was thinking of the regular cards that only need 1 DP display, and the other 2 can be DVI or HDMI.

 

[Completely Bonkers]

I think a 5770 with 6 outs designed to fit ONE slot would be more practical to 99% of people that want a wall of desktop. Then you can stick 4 of them in a workstation for 24 outs.

 

[qwerty_lesh]

It looks like an April fools. Which it OBVIOUSLY isn't but can you imagine this thing a year ago? People would be like, 'yeah, right, pull the other one.'

Overkill unless you own an evil mansion from whence to spread evildoings across the globe and you need to monitor your 12 evil henchmen doing nefarious things.

Also, how big a freaking room would you need?

thanks, now I want to play evil genius!

Do you really need that? You would have to sell your house, kids and one and a half kidney to afford 12 monitors. And it's not practical at all.

Its not about the Need.. its about the ePeen !! !! imagine how mammoth it'll be when your showing off your sleek 12 screen rig

edit: in your cardboard box house under a bridge somewhere because you defaulted on your homeloan buying it all ending up bankrupt!!! !