With the way things have been going in the graphics industry, it would not be to brash an assertion to say that NVIDIA is likely to be on top again in a couple of months. However, taking into consideration other factors might shed some light on the reasons that at least one AMD executive believes that the performance crown is not going anywhere anytime soon.

We must admit that we were somewhat skeptical of the Radeon HD4870X2. After all, one Radeon HD4870 by itself was notorious for running a bit warm; how could AMD possibly manage to cool two on a single card. If reviews and availability of the card are any indication, all of the doubts we had about the HD4870 X2 were completely and utterly wrong. All reviews herald the X2 as the fastest single graphics card on the planet, and, quite frankly, for the price it is a better buy than two of the second fastest. All indications seem to reveal that AMD is selling just as many cards as they are making.

In an interview with Hexus, AMD’s VP of worldwide GPU and chipset sales, John Byrne, said “We believe that we are in great shape to remain on top of this segment for some time with our leading architecture and engineering strategy.” Byrne also goes on to subtly slam NVIDIA’s pre-RV770 comments. Perhaps the most interesting part is that Byrne says that the 4870X2 is just step two of a three step process to get AMD back on top. We suspect that step 3 is nothing more than the 4850X2, but who knows.

Byrne speculates about how NVIDIA will respond to the 4870X2. “From a personal point of view, I believe that the competition will respond with price drops (as they repeatedly did in the last few months),” he says. “They will try to play the price-performance game but I have great belief that we will remain in a position of strength. I would also expect them to rush out the + versions of GTX260 and GTX280 i.e. with 55nm [process], causing more confusion on their stack..”

We think he is right on the money. For the entire story head on over to Hexus.

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