If you were lucky enough to pile into San Francisco's Metreon Theatre during GDC 2013 last month, you saw the world's first demo of Battlefield 4, projected loud and proud on the big screen.
A much less publicized debut was also taking place, albeit behind the scenes: AMD's new Radeon HD 7990 graphics card, a.k.a. Malta, powered Battlefield, marking the GPU's own public premiere.
Now, AMD is ready to take the rope off this graphics bad boy and today announced specs, availability and pricing for what it claims is the world's fastest GPU.
Priced at $999 (no word on international pricing), the HD 7990 is an item meant for the enthusiast crowd. Filled with 8.6 billion transistors, 4,096 stream processor and 8.2 TFLOPS of pure computer power, this dual-card package is a lean, mean, processing machine.
Give me G-P-U
A thousand big ones is a lot to fork over for anything, but AMD flushed the 7990 with as much power as possible.
In addition to the aforementioned specs, the GPU comes with 6GB of GDDR5 memory and AMD claimed it can run five simultaneous monitors in one go.
Naturally, the 7990 needs fans to cool it down while it's cooking, so it was topped off with three fans specially designed to be whisper quiet (37 dBa). A large heat sink helps to keep the juices flowing without boiling.
All the hardware amounts to some impressive game play, according to AMD's estimates.
The company asserts the 7990 is the only card that can run Crysis 3 at 3840 x 2160 with max settings cranked up. Tomb Raider can also play at 3840 x 2160 on max mode while also flicking Tress FX.
What's more, the company's tests found the 7990 bested Nvidia's GTX 690 in a 4K resolution fight.
As if 4K res capabilities wasn't enough, there's an extra incentive to purchase it…well, make that eight incentives.
The card comes bundled with eight free games: BioShock Infinite, Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, Far Cry 3, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs and Deus Ex Human Revolution.
The titles will be available within the 7990's product box in any region the bundle is available, AMD noted. Online retailers will start selling the GPU two weeks from today.
It may not be a Battlefield demo, but the video below should give you a good idea of the kind of card AMD is working with.
