Tuesday, April 1st 2014

Radeon R9 295X2 Pictured in the Flesh, Specs Leaked

by
btarunr
 Discuss (72 Comments)
Here it is, folks! The first pictures of what you get inside the steel briefcase AMD ships the Radeon R9 295X2 in. AMD got over the stonewall of having to cool two 250W GPUs with a single two-slot cooling solution, by making it an air+liquid hybrid. The cooler appears to have been designed by any of the major water-cooling OEMs (such as Asetek, Akasa, etc.), and most likely consists of a pair of pump-blocks plumbed to a single 120 x 120 mm radiator, over a single coolant loop. The coolant channel, we imagine, could be identical to that of the ROG ARES 2 by ASUS. There's also a 90 mm fan, but that probably cools heatsinks covering the memory, VRM, and PCIe bridge. The card draws power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, which as you'll soon find out, are running at off-specs.

The Radeon R9 295X2, codenamed "Vesuvius," runs a pair of 28 nm "Hawaii" chips, routed to a PLX PEX8747 PCIe bridge. Each of the two have all 2,816 stream processors enabled, totaling the count to 5,632. The two also have 352 TMUs, and 128 ROPs between them. The entire 512-bit memory bus width is enabled, and each GPU is wired to 4 GB of memory totaling 8 GB on the card. Clock speeds remain a mystery, and probably hold the key to a lot of things, such as power draw and cooling. Lastly, there's the price. AMD could price the R9 295X2 at US $1,499, half that of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX TITAN-Z. In that price difference, heck, even for $500, you could probably buy yourself a full-coverage water block, and a full-fledged loop, complete with a meaty 3 x 120 mm radiator.
Sources: ChipHell, WCCFTech

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72 Comments on Radeon R9 295X2 Pictured in the Flesh, Specs Leaked

#51
The Von Matrices
GreiverBladealso why everybody ask price and wattage and others give a different answer each time. isn't it supposed to be 500w and ~1500$ :roll:
The 2 x 8-pin power connectors plus the slot power means 375W. You can definitely pull more through overclocking, but no manufacturer will design a product that violates the power specification in its stock form. A stock 500W card would have to have 3 x 8 pin power connectors at the least.
Posted on Reply
#52
Bansaku
Here is my question, and it may sound noobish to some, but why can't they stack the GPUs like Intel did with the Core 2 Quad? :confused:
Posted on Reply
#53
HumanSmoke
BansakuHere is my question, and it may sound noobish to some, but why can't they stack the GPUs like Intel did with the Core 2 Quad? :confused:
You mean have the GPU's on the same piece of substrate ? The first thing that comes to mind would be a very high localized temperature where the GPUs are sitting together. The other drawback would be that you would increase trace and electrical contact density - the electrical circuits running from voltage regulation and memory signalling. when every component leads to a single nexus. You'd also have the problem that the sheer number of components would necessitate some being further away from the GPUs than would be considered ideal, since trace length is governed by the laws of physics and variable length traces would produce variances in latency.
Posted on Reply
#54
awesomesauce
cadavecaUh, yep. $369 for a 3870, $600 for the 3870X2. I bought 2x 3870X2.

And frankly, given the grunt offered, I am glad to see price increases. With all the "PC GAMING IS DEAD" "OC IS DEAD" "DESKTOPS ARE DEAD" and "EVERYTHING IS DEAD", sales have dropped, so of course prices are on the rise. Those that do buy high-end hardware...still buy it, too, so why wouldn't they increase prices?

With the price of a 290X being $750, $1500 for a dual GPU card seems right. It's not less, simply because of the size of the GPU die(3870 was much smaller), plus this card pulls more power(3870x2 was 6+8 pin).

I also take that to mean that prices of AMD cards will not drop any time soon.

But then, given the date, this is all probably BS. I am just gonna turn my PC off now...
this^

3870x2 was my last ATI/AMD card.. i remember the price was right, perform well and still lookin good.

why can't they drop the price of a single 290x card and price the dual gpu at a good price/performance ratio.

cause people still buy whatever the price is.
this stupid mining shit is getting ridiculous.
Posted on Reply
#56
Frick
Fishfaced Nincompoop
awesomesaucewhy can't they drop the price of a single 290x card and price the dual gpu at a good price/performance ratio.
Still no price hike in the civilised world. $550 for the cheapest reference 290x, as it was at release. MSI Gaming about $670, also the same. I'm just savoring the moment, we with our huge taxes are paying much less. :D
Posted on Reply
#57
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
tacosRcoolI wonder if this is real?
The post is still here, isn't it?
Posted on Reply
#58
HumanSmoke
tacosRcoolI wonder if this is real?
There's some pretty AMD-ish looking slides at Videocardzthat support the realness
Posted on Reply
#59
Casecutter
Well that make me think it pretty the same/similar cooler used on the Asus ARES II while one fan, meh... Need to see if they change it inside, but how and where the tube are it looks much the same.
Posted on Reply
#60
HumanSmoke
CasecutterWell that make me think it pretty the same/similar cooler used on the Asus ARES II while one fan, meh..
The radiator on the Ares II is 54mm thick, this one is 38mm. Since watercooling is essentially air cooling, it comes down to a simple case of heat dissipation. Fin and tube materials being the same- you're looking at surface area, so if the thickness is reduced, the fin pitch (density) should be increased along with a higher static pressure fan since there is little other option ( I sincerely doubt the radiator is anything other than a two pass situation)
Posted on Reply
#61
Xzibit
HumanSmokeThe radiator on the Ares II is 54mm thick, this one is 38mm. Since watercooling is essentially air cooling, it comes down to a simple case of heat dissipation. Fin and tube materials being the same- you're looking at surface area, so if the thickness is reduced, the fin pitch (density) should be increased along with a higher static pressure fan since there is little other option ( I sincerely doubt the radiator is anything other than a two pass situation)
Ares II = 525w

295x2 = 375w

Leaked Benchmark

Benchmark Source Courtesy of DarkTech-Reviews.com
Posted on Reply
#62
HumanSmoke
XzibitLeaked Benchmark

Benchmark Source Courtesy of DarkTech-Reviews.com
Mmmm great. Seems legit.

14% more performance than two single cards in Crossfire ?!?! Seems at odds with AMD's own slide showing the 295X2 having a 60-65% speed up over a single card in Fire Strike.

That chart also looks suspiciously like an MS Paint worked version of Hilbert's
Blín D'ñeroAnyone not getting immediately by intuition that this is an April's joke, is a full year's fool. :D
Are you available for parties?
Posted on Reply
#63
the54thvoid
Super Intoxicated Moderator
HumanSmokeThat chart also looks suspiciously like an MS Paint worked version of Hilbert's
Absolutely. There is no chance on earth a different reviewer would get those exact same scores from the cards. Most def a paint shop job.

Plus, where the hell does Xzibit get this stuff? He's a google master I clicked the link - it's arabic?
o_O

Actually. You know what? Maybe it's 'stolen' from Guru3D, in as much as Hilbert has done the review and someone has posted some results before the NDA. That would explain the same scores.
Posted on Reply
#64
Xzibit
the54thvoidAbsolutely. There is no chance on earth a different reviewer would get those exact same scores from the cards. Most def a paint shop job.

Plus, where the hell does Xzibit get this stuff? He's a google master I clicked the link - it's arabic?
o_O

Actually. You know what? Maybe it's 'stolen' from Guru3D, in as much as Hilbert has done the review and someone has posted some results before the NDA. That would explain the same scores.
A few sites/blogs/forums already had it up

ThinkComputers
WCCFTech
Overclock.net
etc...

I was just catching u guys up
Posted on Reply
#66
Xzibit
A comparison chart for the miners

Posted on Reply
#67
xorbe
I came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter if it is real or not!
Posted on Reply
#68
Blín D'ñero
Horrible product. Looks, tech, price, design. Of course a niche article only to score in the media. I still consider it a joke.
AMD should focus on improving their CPUs, compete with Intel. And for graphics all manpower should go to the next generation.
The dual-gpu cards design keeps proving less than ideal: currently Thief (game AMD promotes pridely) has flickering in crossfire so you want to have the choice to disable crossfire. You can't disable crossfire on a dual-gpu card. Not with 4870X2 that is, maybe something's changed idk...
Thief Mantle doesn't support crossfire so i suppose on this card it just runs 1 gpu then. But for Thief or other games where crossfire has issues under DirectX or doesn't work at all under Mantle no-one needs this card.
Posted on Reply
#69
MxPhenom 216
ASIC Engineer
Looks awful. Probably the most ugliest card ive seen in a long time. And I hate the idea of hybrid cooling.

I feel like they could have done more intensive engineering work and done something like NVidia did with the Titan-Z.
Posted on Reply
#70
FX-GMC
MxPhenom 216Looks awful. Probably the most ugliest card ive seen in a long time. And I hate the idea of hybrid cooling.

I feel like they could have done more intensive engineering work and done something like NVidia did with the Titan-Z.
I hope this is a joke. Sticking a big ass heatsink and a fan on the card is not intensive engineering. Have there even been any thermal tests done on the card?
Posted on Reply
#71
MxPhenom 216
ASIC Engineer
FX-GMCI hope this is a joke. Sticking a big ass heatsink and a fan on the card is not intensive engineering. Have there even been any thermal tests done on the card?
meh, I am high on oxycontin and percoset right now from surgery Monday, I probably shouldn't be posting at all.
Posted on Reply
#72
FX-GMC
MxPhenom 216meh, I am high on oxycontin and percoset right now from surgery Monday, I probably shouldn't be posting at all.
I wish I was in the same mindset. The surgery I could do without.
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