Monday, September 23rd 2013
Radeon R9 290X Pictured, Tested, Beats Titan
Here are the first pictures of AMD's next-generation flagship graphics card, the Radeon R9 290X. If the naming caught you off-guard, our older article on AMD's new nomenclature could help. Pictured below is the AMD reference-design board of the R9 290X. It's big, and doesn't have too much going on with its design. At least it doesn't look Fisher Price like its predecessor. This reference design card is all that you'll be able to buy initially, and non-reference design cards could launch much later.
With its cooler taken apart, the PCB is signature AMD, you find digital-PWM voltage regulation, Volterra and CPL (Cooperbusmann) chippery, and, well, the more obvious components, the GPU and memory. The GPU, which many sources point at being built on the existing 28 nm silicon fab process, and looks significantly bigger than "Tahiti." The chip is surrounded by not twelve, but sixteen memory chips, which could indicate a 512-bit wide memory interface. At 6.00 GHz, we're talking about 384 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Other rumored specifications include 2,816 stream processors, four independent tessellation units, 176 TMUs, and anywhere between 32 and 64 ROPs. There's talk of DirectX 11.2 support.
It gets better, the source also put out benchmark figures.
The R9 290X is significantly faster than NVIDIA's GeForce TITAN graphics card among the two games it was tested on, Aliens vs. Predators 3, and Battlefield 3. It all boils down to pricing. AMD could cash in on its performance premium, by overpricing the card much like it did with HD 7990 "Malta," or it could torch NVIDIA's high-end lineup by competitively pricing the card.
Source:
DG's Nerdy Story
With its cooler taken apart, the PCB is signature AMD, you find digital-PWM voltage regulation, Volterra and CPL (Cooperbusmann) chippery, and, well, the more obvious components, the GPU and memory. The GPU, which many sources point at being built on the existing 28 nm silicon fab process, and looks significantly bigger than "Tahiti." The chip is surrounded by not twelve, but sixteen memory chips, which could indicate a 512-bit wide memory interface. At 6.00 GHz, we're talking about 384 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Other rumored specifications include 2,816 stream processors, four independent tessellation units, 176 TMUs, and anywhere between 32 and 64 ROPs. There's talk of DirectX 11.2 support.
The R9 290X is significantly faster than NVIDIA's GeForce TITAN graphics card among the two games it was tested on, Aliens vs. Predators 3, and Battlefield 3. It all boils down to pricing. AMD could cash in on its performance premium, by overpricing the card much like it did with HD 7990 "Malta," or it could torch NVIDIA's high-end lineup by competitively pricing the card.
142 Comments on Radeon R9 290X Pictured, Tested, Beats Titan
Being serious, there were issues with both camps at times. He posted an extreme and so are you if we are being truthful.
Go back in your hole troll of the troll. Lol!
Truth of the matter is, I run at 2560x1440, and need the horsepower, bandwidth and vram, of a 780 to power through my games at my (highest) settings. If amd had a SINGLE gpu solution powerful enough, I would likely be on that side. :)
So, since in my current situation amd cannot provide a suitable solution for my needs, I moved to nvidia. ;)
So many egotistical trolls on this site now :wtf:
I can't wait for W1zz's review :D
Otherwise on the performance of the card, it's looking good, but I'll believe it when I see it. :rockout:
one of the GPU14 banner
I have always had good experiences with ATI/AMD cards from starting with the HD 4850. I bought a reference gtx 670 on release a while ago and was utterly disapointed with the build quality, it felt so cheap compared to the AMD reference cards so I sent it back, plus the fan was too loud
www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-asus-radeon-hd-7970-directcu-ii-top-5600mhz-gddr5-1010mhz-2048-cores-4x-dp-dvi-d-dvi-i
Therefore they cant be selling the current generation cards at HALF the price of the new ones where there wont even be much performance difference. Considering just getting this 7970 actually it seems like good value for £232
It's an open market and they'll charge what they want too. I'll be surprised though if it's anything more expensive than the GTX 780. My (admittedly factory water cooled) HD7970 retailed at £600 here in UK. I bought it for £520.
I think the standard 7970's retailed between £400-450.
And something needs to be addressed about some general comments- there is sweet f*ck all wrong with single AMD gfx card support. However they did and may still do (my concern) have issues with crossfire. That was the whole friggin reason i sold my two water cooled 7970's. Let's not be children and pretend there wasn't an issue and likewise, let's not be arseholes and just say AMD drivers are shite.
:shadedshu
Like I say single card driver support is fine and dandy.
Water cooling the card will no longer turn it into a single slot card.
Hopefully some non-reference designs could mitigate this.
I still hope the scenario John mentioned comes true.
back to 7 until I've a single R9 :) and win 8.1 is out , curse your optimism Mailman you convinced me for half a day.
I need a new GPU to replace my old GTX 580 and I'm waiting for the release of R9 to take a decision.
If price will be around 600,00 euros like GTX 780 aftermarket,my doubt is : R9 will beat GTX 780 ???