Did AMD just tease a dual-GPU graphics card?

By Konrad Krawczyk Updated April 20, 2014

The R9 290X. — AMD

It’s not every day that you get an envelope addressed to you labeled Top Secret, only to open it and find altered photos of yourself accompanied by a cryptic, creepy question — with nary a shred of evidence regarding its possible origin.

Well that’s exactly what happened to me today. Check out the photo below.

IMG_20140313_143844_980

What you see there is an edited photo of yours truly, my face sliced in half and mirrored, asking “Wouldn’t you agree that two is better than one?” Once I remembered that I hadn’t been magically transported to the set of the sequel to SE7EN, I was immediately creeped out. On the back of the photo is a single line that reads “#2BetterThan1,” which only heightened the mystery and further clouded my mind. There was also a blank, photo-size piece of glossy paper in the envelope as well. I actually ran some water on it to see if there was a hidden message for me there. I had no such luck.

Puzzled and taken aback, I plugged “#2BetterThan1” into Twitter, and found others in the tech community also received these envelopes. Some speculation indicates that this could be a tease on AMD’s part regarding a rumored dual-GPU graphics card based on the high-end Radeon 290X chip. The card’s alleged code name is Vesuvius, sharing its name with the volcano that destroyed the ancient city of Pompeii centuries ago.

If this indeed is an AMD Vesuvius tease, I’m relieved. In the meantime, I’m going to check my closets when I get home from work today, and look over my shoulder every now and then.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments below.

Topics

Gaming
GPUs

Konrad Krawczyk

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Konrad covers desktops, laptops, tablets, sports tech and subjects in between for Digital Trends. Prior to joining DT, he…

Computing

This mysterious Nvidia GPU is an absolute monstrosity — and we just got another look

Two Nvidia GPUs side by side.

The beast is back. Several new photos of what appears to be a quad-slot Nvidia GPU emerged today, revealing a monstrous prototype that's still yet to receive a name. In this iteration, it's more of a cooler than a GPU, as it doesn't appear to have a PCB.

Today's leak brings a lot of questions about what could one day be Nvidia's best GPU ever. Is Nvidia really working on a Titan GPU, or is this the RTX 4090 Ti?

Computing

Why Nvidia’s brand new GPU performs worse than integrated graphics

Four Nvidia H100 HPC GPUs side by side.

One might think that a GPU that costs over $40,000 is going to be the best graphics card for gaming, but the truth is a lot more complex than that. In fact, this Nvidia GPU can't even keep up with integrated graphics solutions.

Now, before you get too upset, you should know I'm referring to Nvidia's H100, which houses the GH100 chip (Grace Hopper). It's a powerful data center GPU made to handle high-performance computing (HPC) tasks -- not power PC games. It doesn't have any display outputs, and despite its extensive capabilities, it also doesn't have any coolers. This is because, again, you'd find this GPU in a data center or server setting, where it'd be cooled with powerful external fans.

Computing

Everything you need to know about buying a GPU in 2023

RTX 4090.

The graphics card, also known as the GPU, is arguably one of the most exciting components in any PC build. Alongside the processor, your graphics card often has the greatest impact on the overall performance of your PC. That makes it a pretty high-stakes purchase, especially if you consider that GPUs can get pretty expensive.

The GPU market has a lot to offer, and that's regardless of your needs and your budget. Whether you're aiming for something super cheap to support some light browsing or a behemoth to handle the most GPU-intensive games, you have lots of options. In this guide, we'll show you what to look out for so that you can pick the best GPU that fits your budget and needs.
Nvidia, AMD, or Intel?
Consumer graphics cards are generally split into two categories -- integrated and discrete graphics. Since you're here, you're most likely looking for a discrete (or dedicated) GPU, and that's what we're going to focus on in this article.