<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="font-size: small;">Officially canonized back in 2008 with AMD&rsquo;s &ldquo;small die&rdquo; strategy, dual-GPU cards have since become a staple of AMD&rsquo;s product lineup. Filling a small-but-important niche for AMD, dual-GPU cards allow AMD to both deliver ultra-enthusiast performance levels their traditional single-GPU products can&rsquo;t offer, and at the same time compete with NVIDIA&rsquo;s big die flagship cards without AMD needing to produce a big die GPU of their own. As a result, though these cards aren&rsquo;t necessarily obligatory, with each generation we&rsquo;re left eagerly awaiting just what AMD has in store for their capstone product.</span></p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="font-size: small;">Of course with that said, like so many other facets of the 7000 series, the dual-GPU situation has played out rather unusually in the past year. In a typical year we would see AMD release a standard design, and then later on partners like Asus and PowerColor would release their own custom designs in the name of product differentiation and squeezing out just a bit more performance. Instead the 7000 series has played out in reverse: Asus and PowerColor released their designs first. Consequently, up until this point the 7990 has been &ldquo;officially unofficial&rdquo;, reflecting the fact that the first 7990s were AMD sanctioned products, but not based on AMD designs.</span></p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="font-size: small;">But at long last the 7990 is becoming fully official. AMD is getting into the game with their own 7990 design, and perhaps more importantly they&rsquo;re doing so while coming to bear with the kind of engineering resources that only a GPU manufacturer can provide. This isn&rsquo;t going to be the first 7990 &ndash; that honor belongs to&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: small;">PowerColor&rsquo;s 7990</span><span style="font-size: small;">&nbsp;&ndash; but this is unquestionably the most important 7990.&nbsp; For AMD and their partners going official doesn&rsquo;t just mean the AMD is taking a greater role in matters, but as we&rsquo;ll see it means changing the rules of the game entirely.</span></p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/6915/amd-radeon-hd-7990-review-7990-gets-official" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></p>