ATI, graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices, on Monday announced the its first graphics card in over a year that has suggested price of $449 and that is aimed at hardcore gamers. The new board carries two graphics processing units (GPU) and will compete with Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 Ultra while waiting for a more powerful rival: dual-chip Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2.

“PC gaming enthusiasts demand the ultimate in performance and scalability for their HD gaming experience and the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 sets the standard by which all should be compared in this segment. With this launch we reaffirm our commitment to enthusiast performance leadership and send a clear message that the ATI Radeon 3870 X2 is the new gold standard of the PC gaming world,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager of graphics product group at AMD.

The ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics card is based on two ATI RV670 graphics chips and features 640 stream processing engines operating at 825MHz and 1GB of GDDR3 1.80GHz memory in total. Since all multi-GPU technologies rely on drivers to boost their performance, not all gaming applications will get performance advantage out of two or four chips (when two Radeon HD 3870 X2 are installed into one system).

When combined with ATI PowerPlay technology, the ATI Radeon 3870 X2 delivers “exceptional” idle power efficiency with the ability to dynamically raise or lower GPU power depending on the usage scenario, AMD said.

Like all the latest ATI Radeon HD 3000-series graphics cards, ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 board supports DirectX 10.1 feature-set, PCI Express 2.0 as well as second generation UVD unified video decoding engine along with improved Avivo HD post-processing engine that now supports high-definition video upscaling to 2560x1440 resolution.

“We’re pleased to see our newest DirectX 10 technology brought to market so soon with the introduction of AMD’s latest enthusiast hardware. One of the greatest advantages of PC gaming is the rapid pace at which the experiences evolve and improve. ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 delivers on the promise of DirectX 10 gaming with significantly improved visuals and enhanced performance,” said Kevin Unangst, senior global director of Games for Windows at Microsoft.

The ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 launches with broad availability and ecosystem support from AMD’s add-in-board (AIB) and systems integrators (SI) partners. AIB partners building boards based on the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 include Asustek Computer, Ask, Club3D, Diamond Multimedia, HIS, ITC, Jetway, MicroStar International, Sapphire, Triplex, Tul and Visiontek. Systems integrators launching the new  board include ABS, Alienware, Canada Computers, CyberPower, Falcon-Northwest, IBuyPower, Maingear, Systemax and Velocity Micro.

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