PowerColor Also Shows Off Dual-Radeon HD 6870 Graphics Card

The PowerColor HD 6970 X2 isn't the only new dual-GPU graphics card on display at PowerColor, there's also the HD 6870 X2. We're not entirely sure why one would come up with such an SKU in an already crowded performance market segment, but perhaps PowerColor is trying to squeeze in between performance levels of HD 6970 and HD 6990. While not a bad idea, it comes with the usual challenges and limitations of a dual-GPU graphics card: application support for CrossFire, and usually high power draw.

Like on the HD 6970 X2, PowerColor used Lucid Hydra technology, with a Hydra Engine chip that provides each of the two AMD Barts GPU with a PCI-E 2.0 x16 link. Users can choose between AMD CrossFire or Lucid Hydra multi-GPU technologies. With Hydra enabled, you will be able to get this card to work in tandem with any other card in the system. Each Barts GPU has 1120 stream processors, 32 ROPs, and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory across 256-bit wide memory interfaces.

   

Display connectivity includes two DVI, two mini-DP, and a HDMI 1.4a. The card draws power from two 8-pin power connectors. On the PCB, power is conditioned by two sets of 4+2 phase VRM. The card is cooled by a large dual-fan heatsink.