AMD looks to multi-monitor future

AMD has been displaying its new ATI Eyefinity graphics card system, which allows users to run six monitors from a single card.

The ATI Radeon family of DirectX 11-enabled cards is powered by a new processor that the company claims is equal in speed to the fastest supercomputer in use in 2000. Information on ATI Eyefinity is generating attention online.

The cards are capable of displaying a theoretical maximum of 268 megapixels, the firm said, which is roughly equivalent to the human eye.

"One of the criticisms that I've received is that we're a little understated, that we don't push as aggressively in the market as we could," Rick Bergman, senior vice president of AMD's products group, told journalists at a press conference on the mothballed aircraft carrier USS Hornet.

"Our competitor makes more grandiose statements. So mark my words that, by the end of today, without dispute and unambiguously, AMD will be the graphics leader in the world."

Bergman explained that engineers had spent more than a million man hours developing the new graphics system. The GPU has over two billion transistors, and is capable of opening up new applications such as videoconferencing in much better quality.

Bergman demonstrated a 24-screen display running from a single PC with four graphics cards, and went as far as to say that this kind of card could allow so much screen real estate that it would eliminate the need to scroll.

To get the best from the new cards AMD has partnered with Samsung to develop a new range of screens with very thin bezels.