Spanish website BitDreams.se (Google translated) has posted what they claim is information on AMD's next generation Radeon HD 8000 Series GPUs. Of particular interest to hardcore gamers is the indication that AMD will be launching a dual-GPU card sometime in the second quarter of 2013.
The purported leaked roadmap reveals that two 8800 Series cards are scheduled to ship this quarter. If that is to be believed, AMD is quickly running out of time to make that happen. But perhaps more interesting is specifications of the Radeon HD 8990 (Venus XTX), which will essentially be two 8970 GPUs combined on a single PCB.
This monster card is listed as having 5.1 billion transistors (between the two GPUs), 5,210 stream processors and 160 texture units per core. The 8990 is also listed as having 48 ROPs per core and a pair of 384-bit buses. Memory is expected to be anywhere in the range of 6GB to 12GB and should be clocked from the factory at 1,250MHz. Each GPU will ship running at 950MHz, according to the roadmap.
It's worth mentioning that the card will carry a maximum TDP of 375 watts and that each core and memory set will be clocked slightly lower than a standalone 8970 GPU. For comparison, a single 8970 will run at 1050MHz core / 1500MHz memory. This means the card won't be quite as powerful as two individual 8970s but should take up less space on your motherboard and in your case.
The card will support DirectX 11, Shader Model 5.0 and OpenGL 4.2 just like the rest of the 8000 Series lineup. Expect to pay upwards of $1,000 (estimate) to outfit your gaming rig with this dual-GPU beast when (and if) it ships next year.