Monday, October 14th 2013
Reference Radeon R9 290X Taken Apart
A HIS-branded AMD reference design Radeon R9 290X graphics card was taken apart by Expreview, revealing its cooling solution, the PCB, the VRM, and the star attraction, the company's new 28 nm "Hawaii" silicon. The pictures match with an earlier, blurrier leak from September. The cooling solution is typical AMD fare, with its copper plate covering the GPU, memory, and VRM areas, aluminium channels, and a lateral-flow fan. The PCB features the swanky new 7.08 billion-transistor chip from AMD, sixteen GDDR5 memory chips (all of which are on the obverse side), and the 5+1+1 phase VRM, which uses CPL-made chokes, IR-made DirectFETs, and a new IR-made VRM controller. The first reviews of the Radeon R9 290X should be published later this month. Find more pictures at the source.
Source:
Expreview
61 Comments on Reference Radeon R9 290X Taken Apart
My old PSU had huge coil whine by very high fps - latest 3dmark 1st benchmark, now when I bought new one its so silent almost unnoticeable, I have to put my head near psu ~ 5cm away to hear it.
Has coil whine
The only time I've had whine (on virtually any card) is in game menus that don't cap, so it's at 200+ fps.
I meant it looked similar to the 7970 board. The power circuitry layout, especially. Both. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if they've had fully assembled cards lying around, waiting to be sent to their partners. Would certainly explain why the 290/290X is being limited to reference designs for now. Agreed. Coil whine doesn't bother me as long as the hardware works. My case fans drown out the whine anyway, and even if they didn't, I game with headphones on.
Luckily, only one of my 7970s has coil whine and it's the worst ASIC and overclocker of the three.
Then you slap it in a cooler the same as your now $300 card, you don't make it feel premium, and you want to charge me high cost for it. If you want to make it premium, you have to make it premium.
You can't cheap out on presentation and then expect the same or close to the same as the other guy. nVidia knows enough to really spare no expense on the cooler just to give off the impression that people spending the extra money are getting something for their money.
Moreover, coil whine may be acceptable to some, but it won't be acceptable to a lot of people dropping this kinda cash on a card (or two or three).
All that said, I'm glad AMD is returning to the high end. Even if they don't lower the price points much or raise the bar much (or at all?), it's nice to see the ti-- ...er.., I mean giants slugging it out at the high end again because GPU's (and enthusiast PC's in general) have become so boring lately...
Coil whine is speculation based on it apparently using the same choke as the 7970. There's no reviews saying it whines. Speculation.
As for the cooler, the 280x is the 7970, which has a 250 watt TDP. The 290x is rumored to have a 300w TDP. Additionally, the 280x doesn't have a reference cooler. Everything is custom (Anandtech.com). AMD may have thrown on a similar cooler to the 280x in their engineering samples, but only because it's what they had available and it shouldn't reflect what you'll get in retail.
tl;dr: Wait until people actually get it in their hands.
EDIT: Seriously though, coil whine sucks. I will never ever be in the market for this GPU in any case, but it always suck.
Not that, as the illuminated xvi points out, it has to be.
What memory is on the titan? I've read a few people complaining that its not the best.
secondly this,,, Amd back in the enthusiast grade GPu thing , what total bollocks, whilst a 7970 isnt graded enthusiast now nor should it Now,, it sure was until titan came out how long ago? ,and as for looking cheap that's exactly why i didnt overpay for an economy aimed gk104 card that had an extended BLOWER on it just to make it look more premium as imho despite the good performance at that time, i would'nt overpay for what i saw as a shit built gpu(gtx680ref) aimed at value guy but priced for muppet man, in short get real i and a great many others are clearly enthusiast's were here waffleing nonesense everyday but most dont have 1 titan never mind more but you stroke your epeen i bet you've a gtx660 anyway:p
titan released at last
nvidianews.nvidia.com/Releases/NVIDIA-Introduces-GeForce-GTX-TITAN-DNA-of-the-World-s-Fastest-Supercomputer-Powered-by-World-s-Fa-925.aspx
I just wanted a bare board:D
Those tapped holes you pointed out earlier, are for the brackets they use on GFX cards in mac's, Most GPU's have them ;)