Published in Graphics

HD 4870 1GB cards will be rare

by on25 July 2008

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AMD holds back the chips

According to our sources, 1GB versions of the HD 4870 card will be very scarce for several reasons. The most interesting reason is that AMD is apparently holding back the GDDR5 chips because it's saving them for the HD 4870 X2 card, which will, as you know, have 2 GB of GDDR5 memory.

The main reason is, of course, the price of the GDDR5 memory chips, and the fact that the GDDR5 chips are also very rare and that they negatively influence the price of such cards. But the fact that AMD is holding back the chips is far more interesting. As you may also know, non-reference HD 4870 cards made by partners, and not AMD itself, are very rare.

From everything that we heard, AMD is probably doing this because it wants to be sure that there will be enough HD 4870 X2 cards when it gets launched, and this might be a good thing. We are still waiting for the first reviews of the HD 4870 1GB cards, just to see how well it does against the HD 4870 512MB version.


Last modified on 29 July 2008
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