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The Verdict
Alright then, time to wrap up this preview. As stated, there where some limitations enforced on this preview, mainly related to the number of benchmarks we can present. In our full review we'll obviously include the entire test-suite. But let me start by saying, all other benchmarks we took, were showing very similar performance. So for me it's simple, if this product launches at a 449-499 USD price level, AMD will have a unadulterated hit in the high-end segment.
Well, this was an interesting test for sure. The one thing each time I stumble into when I do something Crossfire/SLI/X2 related is ask myself the question: should you really be comparing a single GPU based product against a dual GPU based product? Is that even a fair thing to do ? The answer I'm afraid is two-fold. I strongly feel that I have more confidence in a single-GPU based graphics card mainly due to the fact you'll have much less worries to think about. See with Dual-GPU gaming you'll always run into slight irritations; the fact that sometimes a game is not yet supported or working at all in Crossfire. Also there's other stuff to consider, power consumption is doubled up but also .. your graphics solution will all of the sudden will create 2x more heat.
So that's a bit of a culprit there. Looking at it from the other side, if we take a GeForce GTX 280 (as presented in the preview) and compare that directly to bang for buck gaming performance, then the single-GPU solution is being annihilated. So this is a bit like comparing oranges and apples, both nice fruits .. yet very different. See, I tend to believe in the single-GPU based products, but just can't ignore what we tested today, the R700, is an extremely powerful graphics solution that will offer much better gaming performance.
On highlighted comments, is this reviewer talking out of his/her ass? pure speculation? 2x more heat?