Tomorrow NordicHardware will be in Los Angeles and cover AMD’s launch of Radeon HD 6870 and Radeon HD 6850. New pictures of the top model reveal more about the expanded monitor support, where the standard model of HD 6870 can in theory support up to 10 monitors and 3D.
AMD Radeon HD 6870 is as the picture shows equipped with five separate video outputs, but through its new mini-DisplayPort 1.2 connectors it makes it possible to power more monitors from a single connector. The new DisplayPort specification has twice the bandwidth and in theory it can run up to four monitors with 1920×1200 pixel resolution each.
DisplayPort v1.2 increases performance by doubling the maximum data transfer rate from 10.8 Gbps (Giga-bits-per-second) to 21.6 Gbps, greatly increasing display resolution, color depths, refresh rates, and multiple display capabilities.
In the case of AMD’s new graphics card it means it can run up to 10 monitors with 1920 x 1080 resolution – in theory thanks to the DisplayPort 1.2 specification. If you raise the resolution to 2560 x 1600 pixels the bandwidth is “only” enough for two monitors per output, which means at most six monitors at 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution.
Whether AMD has limited the number of monitors is unclear, but from what it seems the Eyefinity6 series from AMD may be a thing of the past.
Though this requires mointors with DisplayPort 1.2 support, something we will most likely have to wait for since even the current DisplayPort specification isn’t even a commodity. At the same time 1GB graphics memory is hardly enough to power six or more monitors, where Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 with 2GB graphics memory is the most obvious result of that.
AMD gets 3D
The card will also bring a new technology called HD3D that implies that AMD is jumping on the 3D train for real. Exactly how and what you need to get the technology working is uncertain, but in 2011 NVIDIA 3D Vision will not be the only 3D technology on the market.
The graphics card that has now been caught on camera is very similar to AMD’s reference card of Radeon HD 5800 with a full cover cooler and fan on the rear. The video outputs seen on the bracket are two mini-DisplayPort outputs, two DVI outputs and HDMI 1.4a output. The card has 1GB GDDR5 memory and 256-bit memory interface.
As expected Radeon HD 6000 will get an updated multimedia processor in the form of UVD3, but the exact news i brings is unclear. The launch date may be moved back from October 18th, but AMD seem vague here.
Source: It.com.cn
