NVIDIA's Fermi has been occupying headlines for the past week or so, but out of all the partner cards released, can anyone identify the one brand that's missing from the list?
Yep, it's XFX. The California-based manufacturer has thus far failed to launch any products based on NVIDIA's Fermi architecture - despite earlier leaks suggesting cards would be introduced on GTX 480 launch day.
A little strange, considering XFX has been one of NVIDIA's biggest partners for the best part of a decade, so what's going on? According to Legit Reviews, XFX may have decided not to support the current Fermi products - GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 - because the company believes the rival Radeon HD 5000-series is better suited to the enthusiast marketplace. A plausible decision? Perhaps, but Fudzilla at the opposite end of the rumour mill suggests NVIDIA opted not to supply the company with Fermi GPUs following XFX's decision to start manufacturing and selling rival AMD products.
We've contacted XFX for clarification, but whatever the reason, XFX currently has no GeForce 400-series products in its line up and will instead turns its attention to a high-end part first seen at CeBIT earlier this month; the 4GB Radeon HD 5970 Eyefinity 6 Black Edition.
Joining the likes of Sapphire and ASUS, XFX's souped-up card is said to feature two 850MHz Radeon HD 5870 "Cypress" GPUs on a single PCB, hooked up to a gargantuan 4GB GDDR5 frame buffer running at an effective 4,800MHz.
On paper, that makes it the fastest thing since Jenson Button, and it looks as though XFX is pulling out all the stops to make this the one card everyone wants, but nobody can afford.
In addition to the 5970-beating specs, XFX's card also incorporates six Mini DisplayPort outputs to make full use of ATI Eyefinity technology, and if the latest images from Swedish website nordichardware are anything to go buy, it'll come packaged inside a replica P90 machine gun.
Back at CeBIT, XFX was said to be producing just 1,500 units of this limited edition card, so we'd expect it to fetch at least $1,000 if it ever comes to retail. The ultimate enthusiast accessory, or a step too far? Let us know what you think in the HEXUS.community forums.
