ATI, graphics business unit of Advanced Micro Devices, did not let all of its partners to roll-out factory-overclocked graphics cards based on ATI Radeon HD 4770 (RV740) graphics processing units (GPUs) and recently admitted that it could not supply enough of such chips due to production issues. However, the company claims that a dual-chip ATI Radeon HD 4770 graphics board is actually a good idea.

“A dual ASIC board utilizing the ATI Radeon HD 4770 chip is a great concept idea. This would be up to our partners to bring to market,” said Patrick Moorhead, vice president of advanced marketing at AMD, in an interview with Technologizer web-site.

ATI Radeon HD 4770 X2 graphics card would offer performance on par with ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 that is only available from Sapphire Technologies and which cannot be bought from every retail or online store. Moreover, dual-chip ATI Radeon HD 4770 would be considerably cheaper to manufacture thanks to less complex power supply circuitry as well as 128-bit memory bus (vs. 256-bit on the Radeon HD 4850).

Unfortunately, there are numerous obstacles on the way of ATI Radeon HD 4770. At the moment ATI/AMD cannot supply enough ATI RV740 graphics processors even for single-chip graphics cards. It is rumoured that ATI will be in position to supply sufficient amount of RV740 chips around mid-August. Meanwhile, the company plans to release DirectX 11-compatible graphics cards ahead of Windows 7/DX11 launch in late October. Provided that it takes several weeks to ramp up production of a graphics card (in case its print-circuit board had been developed and tested), hypothetical ATI Radeon HD 4770 X2 can only reach the market weeks ahead of DirectX 11 chips, which would be preferred by gamers looking for high performance and compatibility with future video-games.

All-in-all, while ATI does not prohibit its partners to create dual-chip ATI Radeon HD 4770 graphics boards, add-in-board makers are unlikely to introduce such a product.

ATI Radeon HD 4770, which is powered by ATI RV740 graphics processing unit, features 640 stream processors, 32 texture units, 16 render back ends and 128-bit GDDR3/GDDR4/GDDR5 memory controller. ATI recommends its partners among graphics cards makers to clock the chip at 750MHz and install 512MB of GDDR5 memory at 3200MHz.

Tags: ATI, AMD, Radeon, RV740, 40nm