Wednesday, April 2nd 2014

Radeon R9 295X2 Press Deck Leaked

by
btarunr
 Discuss (78 Comments)
Here are some of the key slides from AMD's press-deck (presentation) for reviewers, for the Radeon R9 295X2 dual-GPU graphics card, ahead of its April 8 launch. The slides confirm specifications that surfaced earlier this week, which describe the card as bearing the codename "Vesuvius," having two 28 nm "Hawaii" GPUs, and all 2,816 stream processors on the chips being enabled, next to 176 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 512-bit wide GDDR5 memory interfaces. Two such chips are wired to a PLX PEX8747 PCI-Express 3.0 x48 bridge chip. There's a total of 8 GB of memory on board, 4 GB per GPU. Lastly, clock speeds are revealed. The GPUs are clocked as high as 1018 MHz, and memory at 5.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective). The total memory bandwidth of the card is hence 640 GB/s.

The Radeon R9 295X2 indeed looks like the card which was pictured earlier this week, by members of the ChipHell tech community. It features an air+liquid hybrid cooling solution, much like the ROG ARES II by ASUS. The cooling solution is co-developed by AMD and Asetek. It features a couple of pump-blocks cooling the GPUs, which are plumbed with a common coolant channel running through a single 120 mm radiator+reservoir unit. A 120 mm fan is included. A centrally located fan on the card ventilates heatsinks that cool the VRM, memory, and the PCIe bridge chip.
The card draws power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and appears to use a 12-phase VRM to condition power. The VRM appears to consist of CPL-made chokes, and DirectFETs by International Rectifier. Display outputs include four mini-DisplayPort 1.2, and a dual-link DVI (digital only). The total board power of the card is rated at 500W, and so AMD is obviously over-drawing power from each of the two 8-pin power connectors. You may require PSUs with strong +12V rails driving them. Looking at these numbers, we'd recommend at least an 800W PSU for a single-card system, ideally with a single +12V rail design. The card is 30.7 cm long, and its coolant tubes shoot out from its top. AMD expects the R9 295X2 to be at least 60 percent faster than the R9 290X at 3DMark FireStrike (performance).
Source: VideoCardz

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78 Comments on Radeon R9 295X2 Press Deck Leaked

#26
Assimilator
LAN_deRf_HAWhy oh why would you try to cheaply imitate the styling of your competitor? This card looks like a Chinese knockoff of a high end Nvidia card.
Agreed, it looks like they tried to copy the "premium" styling of the GTX 690/Titan/Titan Z, but the end result ended up looking like a cheap knockoff.
Posted on Reply
#27
HumanSmoke
adulaaminI'm glad AMD came out with this card although if I were ever to buy one I'd ditch that hybrid cooler and build a custom loop. I don't like how it looks like but if it performs well and is priced right then it's a win.
Well, unless you have a scarcity of PCIEx16 slots, chances are you'd be much better off with a couple of 290's or 290X's if the $1500 price tag is to believed. I'm pretty sure you could grab two cards, full cover blocks, fittings, and a Crossfire bridge if required for less than the price of the 295X. They will overclock better, and hooking them up to a triple rad gives the option of using less aggressive (noisy) fan profiles.
Posted on Reply
#28
RCoon
HumanSmokeWell, unless you have a scarcity of PCIEx16 slots, chances are you'd be much better off with a couple of 290's or 290X's if the $1500 price tag is to believed. I'm pretty sure you could grab two cards, full cover blocks, fittings, and a Crossfire bridge if required for less than the price of the 295X. They will overclock better, and hooking them up to a triple rad gives the option of using less aggressive (noisy) fan profiles.
If the 7990 is anything to go by, two single cards appears to be better than dual GPU single cards.
Posted on Reply
#29
HumanSmoke
RCoonIf the 7990 is anything to go by, two single cards appears to be better than dual GPU single cards.
Can probably be a reasonable generalization levelled at most dual GPU cards.
The 7990 (initial pricing), this card, and the Titan Z aren't even attempting to achieve price/performance parity with a couple of single cards. At least previous duallies made an effort not to charge a premium over two single GPU boards. Add in the fact that a duallie is generally either lower performing or louder/hotter (or both) than two single cards and I can't really see the attraction for a gaming workload.
Posted on Reply
#30
buildzoid
RCoonCould be that they don't want to stress the power assembly too much. I imagine most would want to slap a custom block on this and overclock, but it depends on how strong the VRM's are. Similar to the 780/Titan issue of the VRM's being a little less than ideal for 1300+ OC's on the reference cards. Granted it was achievable, but too much power through those puppies and they were liable to pop. Not so sure how a dual chip VRM assembly would deal with the intense TDP, stress and overall heat. It wouldn't surprise me to see a voltage limit on this.
The VRM on this seems to be a doubled up and more compact version of the R9 290X VRM so the GPUs can easily get fed 375A each so 750A total current allowance. Just don't expect the PCIe 8Pins(30A-40A) to be able to carry that much power(750A @ 1.5V = 1125W = 93A @ 12V) so if you do plan to use all of the VRM's capability you should solder on 1 or 2 more 6 pin connectors or risk burning something. So VRM wise your good but the dual 8 pins are insufficient. Most Quad R9 290X OC attempts I've seen included 2 1600W PSUs so this card OCed + OCed intel hexa core/ AMD octa core will need a 1200W+ PSU.
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#31
radrok
RCoonCould be that they don't want to stress the power assembly too much. I imagine most would want to slap a custom block on this and overclock, but it depends on how strong the VRM's are. Similar to the 780/Titan issue of the VRM's being a little less than ideal for 1300+ OC's on the reference cards. Granted it was achievable, but too much power through those puppies and they were liable to pop. Not so sure how a dual chip VRM assembly would deal with the intense TDP, stress and overall heat. It wouldn't surprise me to see a voltage limit on this.
I remember I could overclock the 6990 up to 1.35v on both cores with Trixx, yielded me 1100 Mhz which was insane on that card, ATI has always had beefy PCB components, they actually care!
Posted on Reply
#33
Serpent of Darkness
HumanSmokePoint #2 : FP64.....295X2 : 1.433 TFlops (AMD artificially limits double precision to 1/8 of single precision with Radeon Hawaii) -and which is actually ~25% less than the HD 7990) and 54% less than Titan Z if the Z's 8TF FP32 is correct
* (1018 * 5632 * 2)
About Point # 2
Hagedoorn, Hilbert, AMD Unveils FirePro W9100, Guru3D.com, 3/27/2014.
www.guru3d.com/news_story/amd_unveils_firepro_w9100.html

GTX Titan-Z SPP = 8.06 TFLOPs. = 700 MHz per GPU = 2x 6GB VRam = $3,000.00 per unit.
R9-295x SPP = 11.466 TFLOPs. = 1018 MHz per GPU = 2x 4GB VRam = $1,500.00 per unit.

64bit floating point precision comparison:
GTX Titan-Z 64FPP = 2x 1.3468 TFLOPs at stock.
K40 Tesla 64FPP = > 1.4 TFLOPs. = 12 GB VRam = $5,400.00
FirePro W9100 64FPP = 2.56 TFLOPs. = 16 GB VRam = $3,000.00 to $4,500.00
R9-295x 64FPP = 2x 0.716672 TFLOPs.
R9-290x 64FPP = 0.704 TFLOPs.
Posted on Reply
#34
Sasqui
RCoonIf the 7990 is anything to go by, two single cards appears to be better than dual GPU single cards.
What do you want to bet W1z is testing the 290x2 under NDA as we poke around in this thread ;)

Here's his 290x CF review perf chart (scaling isn't great, but then again who knows what new drivers have done for it):

Posted on Reply
#35
Hilux SSRG
SasquiWhat do you want to bet W1z is testing the 290x2 under NDA as we poke around in this thread ;)
We can only hope! Can't wait to see the eventual comparos to the TitanZ.
Posted on Reply
#36
Casecutter
It’s disappointing the use of pretty much standard pump/blocks that aren't even independent (first one heats the water and sends it to the next). I really had hoped AMD had stepped up their game. Engineering something more akin to a vapor chambers that wicked the heat quickly from the chip, then to a larger area permitting the water block not to have such a localized hot spot. A single pump that’s more integrated into the radiator/fan module and then two line in/out but split to send cool water to each block independently. I think if done right you could have exceptionally good heat transfer in a smaller package blocks with less restriction, necessitating just one pump and perhaps able to better juggle the radiator/fan requirement, somewhat…

While overall outward aesthetics is a little blah, and mimic’ie of the Nvidia style. I think AMD/Asetek should have taken it to another level of refinement and not just pulled on what just the existing ROG ARES II ASUS used. Asus if I remember made a limited run of 1,000 units of ARES II, selling them at $1,500. AMD easily is probably looking at minimum 5x that, and they can’t price it better on their volume.
Not my cup of tea.
Posted on Reply
#37
RCoon
SasquiWhat do you want to bet W1z is testing the 290x2 under NDA as we poke around in this thread ;)

Here's his 290x CF review perf chart (scaling isn't great, but then again who knows what new drivers have done for it):

Woah, I didn't realise crossfire scaling on the 290X was really that bad... I expected a litte more than 31% overall...
Posted on Reply
#38
Brusfantomet
RCoonWoah, I didn't realise crossfire scaling on the 290X was really that bad... I expected a litte more than 31% overall...
considering thats over 1600 x 900, 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1600 its not that bad, the scaling goes up a little at 2560 x 1600 to 47 %, guessing its even better at 4K
Posted on Reply
#39
RCoon
Hilux SSRGCan't wait to see the eventual comparos to the TitanZ.
I think, and I really want to believe, the 295X2 will beat the Titan Z. The Titan Z will be voltage locked, and it will be bottlenecked by the air cooler. The AMD however will have a much higher thermal tolerance before throttling (i hope), and will possibly have a higher voltage perimeter.

All that being said. Titan Z is not designed for gaming, for the 50th time, it's a cheap dpcompute card for home servers. This needs to be stapled to every forum header, title, post, thread, the whole works, until everyone on the internet understands that.
Posted on Reply
#40
xorbe
RCoonWoah, I didn't realise crossfire scaling on the 290X was really that bad... I expected a litte more than 31% overall...
Yeah it needs more pixels to push, seems cpu bottlenecked at lower res.
Posted on Reply
#41
Suka
RCoonI think, and I really want to believe, the 295X2 will beat the Titan Z. The Titan Z will be voltage locked, and it will be bottlenecked by the air cooler. The AMD however will have a much higher thermal tolerance before throttling (i hope), and will possibly have a higher voltage perimeter.

All that being said. Titan Z is not designed for gaming, for the 50th time, it's a cheap dpcompute card for home servers. This needs to be stapled to every forum header, title, post, thread, the whole works, until everyone on the internet understands that.
Why do you say so? Nvidia themselves says its for gaming.
Posted on Reply
#42
RCoon
SukaWhy do you say so? Nvidia themselves says its for gaming.
Watch the press release
Posted on Reply
#43
HumanSmoke
SukaWhy do you say so? Nvidia themselves says its for gaming.
They also target the professional markets. In fact, the Titan Z was announced at a technology conference, not a gaming event, and the CEO specifically mentioned the professional aspects of the board in his launch introduction

So if you had a product that was proficient in more than one market segment, why wouldn't you market the products for those markets ?

AMD pushes cryptocurrencies on its gaming blog, are we to assume that Radeons are mining cards only?
Dedicating more hardware to mining helps increase the likelihood that you can be first to verify a transaction and receive your own coins as a reward. This is why a great GPU, like an AMD Radeon™ R9 Series product, is so important.
Of course not. You market wherever you have an opportunity to sell.
Posted on Reply
#44
SIGSEGV
RCoonAll that being said. Titan Z is not designed for gaming, for the 50th time, it's a cheap dpcompute card for home servers. This needs to be stapled to every forum header, title, post, thread, the whole works, until everyone on the internet understands that.[/QUOTE]
LOL, i found it very funny..
how much salary do you get from nvidia?
Posted on Reply
#45
HumanSmoke
SIGSEGVLOL, i found it very funny..
how much salary do you get from nvidia?
LOL I found this very funny...
If Nvidia designed the Titan Z for gaming why would they pay RCoon to say otherwise?

Logical thought process escapes random forum poster - No headline news ever.

:SMH:
Posted on Reply
#46
Xzibit
295x2 just has to a better Price/Performance then Titan Z/790 = Win

We should know when the 295x2 will launch on the 8th

Anyone know when the Titan Z will be launched ?
Posted on Reply
#47
sweet
RCoonI think, and I really want to believe, the 295X2 will beat the Titan Z. The Titan Z will be voltage locked, and it will be bottlenecked by the air cooler. The AMD however will have a much higher thermal tolerance before throttling (i hope), and will possibly have a higher voltage perimeter.

All that being said. Titan Z is not designed for gaming, for the 50th time, it's a cheap dpcompute card for home servers. This needs to be stapled to every forum header, title, post, thread, the whole works, until everyone on the internet understands that.
If you are right about Titan Z, its Geforce tag is just a cunning marketing trick then. Crap for nVidia.
Posted on Reply
#48
HumanSmoke
Xzibit295x2 just has to a better Price/Performance then Titan Z/790 = Win
Well, that just sounds stupid.
Buying high end performance isn't about AMD vs Nvidia, it's about performance, and maybe performance per dollar.
People aren't going to buy the 295X2 because it's "better" than another overpriced card that few would actually buy for gaming. What they are going to compare it to is a comparable solution.

R9 295X2 = $1500

2 x MSI 290X Gaming= $1180

and if you already have an interest in proper watercooling- as a prospective buyer of watercooled $1500 graphics cards should be

2 x PowerColor LCS 290X's= $1400

or if you're not lazy, you can save yourself $46 by doing it yourself

2 x PowerColor PCS+ 290X's= $1140 + 2 EKWB FC blocks $214...Total: $1354

Better overclock than the 295X2. Better power load distribution ( 4 PCI-E inputs versus 2). Less LED lights. Lower price.

The reality is that people go where the performance is at this level of expenditure- and performance (and price) resides with combinations of single GPU boards, not some PR grab for the halo which might (or might not) give midrange card buyers a chubby.

You really sound like someone that has never bought enthusiast grade hardware.
Posted on Reply
#49
Xzibit
Since your reverting back to single gpu card argument in a dual gpu comparison does that mean you've given up hope already. At least wait for the reviews.

It just has to win the dual gpu card war and since Nvidia is selling Titan Z as a Gaming/CUDA Compute card it will compete on a dual GPU card basis with it. No matter how much you and others try and defend or move the goal post in your heads.

Does anyone hear that? Its HumanSmoke in another AMD thread.

Posted on Reply
#50
HumanSmoke
XzibitSince your reverting back to single gpu card argument in a dual gpu comparison does that mean you've given up hope already
Yes. I think the 295X2 is a waste of time for the enthusiast
XzibitAt least wait for the reviews.
Why? Even AMD's own propagandapegs the 295X2 at 60% better than a single card at a 154% higher price.
XzibitIt just has to win the dual gpu card war and since Nvidia is selling Titan Z as a Gaming/CUDA Compute card it will compete on a dual GPU card basis with it
Not really. People aren't going to buy the 295X2 for CUDA development, or for Octane, or for any number of CUDA accelerated productivity apps ( of no small importance due to the hit-and-miss state of OpenCL support)....and as a gaming head-to-head...who cares when two single cards are faster and cheaper
XzibitDoes anyone hear that? Its HumanSmoke in another AMD thread.
:D I've got a long way to go before I reach the lack of understanding and trolling you Xzibitin the Nvidia threads :clap:
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