Today marks the launch of AMD's ultimate new generation ATI Radeon, the HD5970. Two GPUs on one card - is it an unholy mix of pleasure and disgust, or will you actually enjoy doubling up with the world's fastest graphics card? AMD state that there will be several thousand Hemlocks available for purchase at launch, and if you are in the least bit interested in buying one - stop reading now, submit your order, and come back to see why it was an excellent idea. Ready? Good.

The big phrase Rage3D heard repeated in our phone call with AMD's Dave Baumann (AMD GPU Product Manager) and Devon Nekechuk (HD5970 Product Manager) was 'unlocked' - think of the HD5970 as the 'Black Edition' of AMD's GPUs.

This might seem strange when you look over the stock configuration but will make more sense later, we when delve deeper into this ultra-high-end product and the massive potential offered by the latest execution of the AMD sweet spot strategy. Let's hear from AMD themselves:

Today AMD announced the flagship installment in the award-winning line of graphics cards, the ATI Radeon HD5970, the fastest card ever created. Now shipping from retailers and available in the channel, the ATI Radeon HD5970 also launches today in new Alienware Area-51, Area-51 ALX and Aurora desktop PCs. Massive overclocking potential enables PC gaming enthusiasts to dominate their gameplay with DirectX 11, expand the game experience with ATI Eyefinity technology, and accelerate with ATI Stream technology. - AMD Press Release

AMD ATi Radeon HD5970

AMD ATi Radeon HD5970 Highlights

• $599 MSRP

• Dual 'Cypress' GPU

• 20 SIMD and 32 ROPs per GPU

• 1600 Stream Processors per GPU; 3200 total for 4.64TFlops of Compute Power

• 725MHz core clock per GPU

• 1GB GDDR5 @ 1000MHz memory clock (4Gbps) per GPU; 2GB total

• Unlocked overclocking; non-standard CCC Overdrive limits

• 1ea 2x3pin PCIe power + 1ea 2x4pin PCIe power connector required

• 42W idle power / 294W load at default clocks

• Triple display output (2 DVI + 1 mini DisplayPort)

• Eyefinity Crossfire Support (requires DisplayPort connected display)

• Included mini-DP to full-DP adapter; active DVI to HDMI adapter