The Card

AMD has decided to build a dual-slot low-profile design instead of the single slot full-height card that was shown in the press pictures. This has the advantage of making the card appealing to users of compact media PC systems that often do not have space for a full-height graphics card. On the other hand, really tiny media PC cases might not even have the space for a dual-slot card.


The card has one analog VGA port, one full-size HDMI port and one DVI port. AMD's display output logic is clearly superior to what NVIDIA has to offer at this time. Vendors are free to combine six TMDS links into any output configuration they want (dual-link DVI consuming two links) - and use them all at the same time. It would have been nice if AMD had used the extra space provided by the 2nd slot for some additional outputs, for example two mini DisplayPort connectors.

An HDMI sound device is also included in the GPU. The HDMI interface is HDMI 1.4a compatible which includes Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, AC-3, DTS and up to 7.1 channel audio with 192 kHz / 24-bit output. The new revision also brings support for Blu-ray 3D movies which will become important later this year when we will see first Blu-ray 3D titles shipping.


Even though a CrossFire connector is not present, you can combine two of these cards in CrossFire, which exchanges data via the PCI-Express bus.


Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.