Not so long ago, it was rumoured that AMD would allow its partners to create a dual-GPU graphics card based on the Radeon HD 7970. Since then, the concept has been adopted by several manufacturers. Following PowercColor's dual-GPU 'Devil 13' card, HIS has also announced its own version of the 7970 X2. The card is completely designed by HIS and is based on two 28nm 'Tahiti' GPUs in CrossFire.
HIS' creation is called the Radeon HD 7970 X2 IceQ X2 and uses a special version of the IceQ cooler found on HIS' Radeon HD 7970. The heatsink has become quite a bit thicker, as the new HD 7970 X2 takes up three slots. There are a number of copper heatpipes, which transport the heat from the GPUs to the aluminium heatsink efficiently. The PCI-Express switch chip, GDDR5 memory and mosfets are also cooled, each with their own heatspreader. The two large fans provide a firm airflow, allowing the two GPUs to stay cool even under extreme conditions. It's possible that there's still some overclocking headroom as HIS has placed three 8-pin PEG connectors on the card.
To reinforce the card, a metal backplate is present, which also provides some additional cooling. HIS' HD 7970 X2 has a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 connector, CrossFire connector, and several video outputs (1x DVI and 4x mini DisplayPort). No details are available regarding the clock frequencies of the cores and memory. The dual-GPU Radeon HD 7970 being developed by PowerColor will have a core clock frequency of at least 1050 MHz, compared to the 925 MHz of a regular HD 7970. Their Devil 13 card will be released late July at a price of about £1000.
HIS wants to be the first
HIS is convinced that its HD 7970 X2 graphics card will be available before PowerColor's edition, although they couldn't confirm how much earlier. Also undisclosed at this time is a price for the HD 7970 X2 with IceQ cooling. It's quite likely that the card will be expensive, but we appreciate the effort AMD's partners are putting into creating their own dual-GPU cards. The new cards, based on AMD's 'Tahiti' GPU, will be competing with Nvidia's GTMX 690 and the even faster (and more expensive) ASUS Mars III card.
HIS finishes dual-GPU HD 7970 X2 IceQ graphics card (Source: Techpowerup)
