AMD unveiled the fastest graphics card money will be able to buy, a dual-GPU graphics card based on its swanky new "Fiji" silicon. This card will feature 8 GB of memory, and packs two "Fiji" cores in an internal multi-GPU configuration. The card will offer smooth 5K (four times 1440p resolution) gaming. Fiji introduces 50% improvements in performance-per-Watt over the previous-generation "Hawaii" silicon, while staying at 28 nm.

The bets are off, AMD's latest flagship graphics card will indeed get a fancy name, and it will be named Radeon R9 Fury X. Korean tech-site HardwareBattle leaked a product flyer with the SKU name, and its catchphrase "revolutionary, inside out." Based on the 28 nm "Fiji" silicon, the R9 Fury X is expected to feature 4,096 stream processors, 256 TMUs, 128 ROPs, and a 4096-bit wide HBM memory interface, holding 4 GB of memory.

The reference-design Fury X will come with an AIO cooling solution, likely designed by Asetek, featuring a Cooler Master made fan, ventilating its 120 x 120 mm radiator. Just as the Radeon R9 290X did away with D-Sub (VGA) support (even with dongles), Fiji does away with the DVI connector. You still get three DisplayPort 1.2a ports, and a single HDMI 2.0 connector. The card has been pictured on the web featuring two 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

Someone with access to an AMD Radeon Fury sample put it through the compute performance test of GFXBench, and submitted its score to the suite's online score database. Running on pre-launch drivers, the sample is read as simply "AMD Radeon Graphics Processor." Since a GPGPU app is aware of how many compute units (CUs) a GPU has (so it could schedule its parallel processing workloads accordingly), GFXBench was able to put out a plausible-sounding CU count of 64. Since Radeon Fury is based on Graphics CoreNext, and since each CU holds 64 stream processors, the stream processor count on the chip works out to be 4,096.

It looks like AMD's desktop discrete GPU lineup for 2015 will see a mix of rebrands, re-codename, and one big new chip, all making up the new Radeon R7 300 and R9 300 series. Cards based in this lineup should begin rolling out this month. Leaks from OEMs such as this one, suggest that the first of these should begin rolling out as early as June 16.

The spread is pretty cut and dry. "Hawaii," the chip driving the R9 290 series, will not only get a new codename as "Grenada," but also a seamless rebrand to the R9 390 series, with Grenada Pro making up the R9 390, and Grenada XT making up the R9 390X. One possibility could be AMD taking advantage of low 4 Gbit GDDR5 chip prices to cram 8 GB of standard memory amount, across Grenada's 512-bit wide memory interface. The R9 390X will compete with the GeForce GTX 970, while the R9 390 will offer an option in the vast price and performance gorge between the GTX 960 and GTX 970.

Sources tell 3DCenter.org that NVIDIA has successfully taped out its next big silicon based on its upcoming "Pascal" GPU architecture, codenamed GP100. A successor to GM200, this chip will be the precursor to several others based on this architecture. A tape-out means that the company has successfully made a tiny quantity of working prototypes for internal testing and further development. It's usually seen as a major milestone in a product development cycle.

With "Pascal," NVIDIA will pole-vault HBM1, which is making its debut with AMD's "Fiji" silicon; and jump straight to HBM2, which will allow SKU designers to cram up to 32 GB of video memory. 3DCenter.org speculates that GP100 could feature anywhere between 4,500 to 6,000 CUDA cores. The chip will be built on TSMC's upcoming 16 nanometer silicon fab process, which will finally hit the road by 2016. The GP100, and its companion performance-segment silicon, the GP104 (successor to GM204), are expected to launch between Q2 and Q3, 2016.

PowerColor showed off its latest custom graphics card cooling solution, the Devil Hybrid. This particular sample was shown off on a Radeon R9 290X-based prototype, which will likely never make it to the market, because AMD AIB partners cannot unveil "Fiji" based parts just yet; but is expected to feature on AMD's upcoming graphics cards. The Devil Hybrid is a combination of an AIO liquid-based GPU block, and a conventional temperature-activated single fan heatsink for the VRM. The GPU block is plumbed to a 120 mm radiator, with a PWM spinner included. Given that such a setup could tame the R9 295X2, it could prove adequate for a single GPU.

AMD CEO Lisa Su unveiled the company's next flagship graphics processor at an event on the sidelines of Computex, in Taipei. Arguably the biggest GPU package, measuring in at 50 mm x 50 mm, Fiji will instead reduce graphics card PCB size, because memory has been moved to the GPU package, with four 1024-bit HBM1 stacks surrounding the GPU die on the package. We detailed the chip's memory implementation at great lengths in this article. The first graphics cards based on this chip could be unveiled at E3, two weeks from now; and market launch could follow a week later.

Since March, we've been hearing whispers that AMD could give the topmost tier SKU based on its swanky new HBM-equipped "Fiji" silicon a fancy name, just as NVIDIA names its top-dog the GTX TITAN. That name could be the AMD Radeon FURY. A similar name to the brand that launched the erstwhile ATI, with its Rage series, Radeon FURY will be AMD's (and probably the industry's) fastest GPU, and will compete with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX TITAN X.

The card itself is quite diminutive, but that's because of two reasons - with memory being moved to the GPU package, a large amount of PCB real-estate is saved, and so the card can make do with a smaller PCB; and because the rear-end of the card is where the fittings for its AIO liquid-cooling solution are located. These tubes lead to a 120 x 120 mm radiator, with a single 120 mm PWM fan. Given that such a contraption could cool the dual-GPU R9 295X2, it should be effective with the Radeon FURY, just as well. The card will draw power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Display outputs will include three DP 1.2a and one HDMI 2.0. The brand naming indicates that AMD wants to change the terms on which its top-end product competes with NVIDIA's. Low noise and high-performance will be the focus, not power draw. Nobody buys an Aventador for its MPG.

Even as NVIDIA prevents its AIC (add-in card) partners from coming up with custom-design GeForce GTX TITAN-X graphics cards, ZOTAC seems to have found its way around that, either by using a loophole that allows partners to come up with TITAN-series cards with "factory fitted water blocks," or NVIDIA is loosening up on its custom-design policy for the SKU, in the wake of GTX 980 Ti not being faster than the GTX TITAN-X, and competition from AMD "Fiji XT" graphics card. The result, is the GeForce GTX TITAN-X ArcticStorm (model number: ZT-90402-10P).

This card comes with a hybrid air+liquid cooling solution. You can run it either as a conventional air-cooled graphics card, care of its meaty IceStorm triple-fan heatsink, which is carried over from the company's recent AMP! Omega SKUs; or plumb the card to a liquid-cooling loop. The fans stay off when the GPU is below a 65°C temperature threshold (or when the liquid-cooling loop is active). Even with the fans off and the liquid cooling loop handling the GPU, the heatsink cools the 12 GB of memory and VRM. The card offers factory-overclocked speeds of 1026 MHz core, 1114 MHz GPU Boost (compared to 1000/1086 MHz reference), and an untouched 7.00 GHz memory. ZOTAC will display the card at Computex 2015. The company will give this card a worldwide launch.

In the latest picture leaked of AMD's upcoming flagship graphics card, codenamed "Fiji-XT," we get a final confirmation of the reference-design card's length, particularly its short PCB. Since this card uses a factory-fitted AIO liquid cooling solution, and since the Fiji XT package is effectively smaller than that of Hawaii, with the surrounding memory chips gone (moved to the GPU package as HBM stacks), the PCB is extremely compact, with just the GPU package, and its VRM. Speaking of which, the card draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The coolant tubes stick out from the rear of the card, making their way to a 120 x 120 mm radiator, with a single included 120 mm PWM fan. With this card, AMD is doing away with DVI altogether. Connectors will be a mixture of DisplayPort 1.2a and HDMI 2.0.

TechPowerUp announced the latest version of GPU-Z, the popular graphics system information, monitoring, and diagnostic utility. Version 0.8.3 adds support for new GPUs, updates support for existing ones, adds new features, and addresses some bugs. To begin with, GPU-Z adds a new feature that tells you if the video BIOS embeds a UEFI module or not, letting you use some of the newer OS features such as Secure Boot and Fast Boot.

GPU-Z 0.8.3 comes with support for new and upcoming GPUs, such as NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, GTX 965M, GTX 950M, NVS315, and GT 750 (GK106). On the AMD front, it adds support for AMD "Fiji" GPU, with its new memory technology; and "Mullins" APU (Radeon R2 and R3 series). It also adds support for the integrated graphics cores inside several Intel Core "Broadwell" CPUs. OpenCL detection code is improved, and a missing PerfCap sensor bug is fixed.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.8.3 | GPU-Z 0.8.3 ASUS ROG Themed

The complete change-log follows.

Johan Andersson, technical director for the Frostbite game engine at DICE, developers of games such as Battlefield, tweeted the first clear picture of AMD's next flagship graphics card, and it looks a lot [better] than this mockup render. We'd be tempted to call it the Radeon R9 390X, but older reports suggest that AMD could give it a fancy name, just as NVIDIA named its top-dog "Titan." That's not all, Andersson commented that "this new island is one seriously impressive and sweet GPU," referring to the card's GPU codename of "Fiji." AMD is expected to launch this card in the third week of June. Either to preempt that, or out of spook (with an effort to siphon off high-end GPU sales), NVIDIA is preparing the GeForce GTX 980 Ti, which will launch in the first week.

Back in 2008, when it looked like NVIDIA owned the GPU market, and AMD seemed lagging behind on the performance and efficiency game, the company sprung a surprise. The company's RV770 silicon, the first GPU to implement GDDR5 memory, trounced NVIDIA's big and inefficient GeForce GTX 200 series, and threw AMD back in the game. GDDR5 helped the company double the memory bandwidth, with lower pin- and memory-chip counts, letting the company and its partners build graphics cards with fewer components, and earn great margins, which the company invested in development of its even better HD 5000 series, that pushed NVIDIA with its comical GeForce GTX 480, to hit its lowest ever in market-share. Could AMD be looking at a similar turnaround this summer?

Since the introduction of its Graphics CoreNext architecture in 2012, AMD has been rather laxed in its product development cycle. The company has come out with a new high-end silicon every 18-24 months, and adopted a strategy of cascading re-branding. The introduction of each new high-end silicon would relegate the existing high-end silicon to the performance segment re-branded, and the existing performance-segment silicon to mid-range, re-branded. While the company could lay out its upcoming Radeon R9 series much in the same way, with the introduction of essentially just one new silicon, "Fiji," it could just prove enough for the company. Much like RV770, "Fiji" is about to bring something that could prove to be a very big feature to the consumer graphics market, stacked high-bandwidth memory (HBM).

Weeks ago, we were the first to report that AMD could give its top SKU carved out of the upcoming "Fiji" silicon a fancy name à la GeForce GTX TITAN, breaking away from the R9 3xx mold. A new report by SweClockers confirms that AMD is carving out at least one flagship SKU based on the "Fiji" silicon, which will be given a fancy brand name. The said product will go head on against NVIDIA's GeForce GTX TITAN-X. We know that AMD is preparing two SKUs out of the fully-loaded "Fiji" silicon - an air-cooled variant with 4 GB of memory; and a liquid-cooled one, with up to 8 GB of memory. We even got a glimpse of the what this card could look like. AMD is expected to unveil its "Fiji" based high-end graphics card at E3 (mid-June, 2015), with a product launch a week after.

Earlier this day, HP announced its newest line of desktop PCs, one of which comes with a curious-sounding Radeon R9 380 graphics card. HP's product pages for its new desktops aren't active, yet, leaving us to only speculate on what the R9 380 could be. One theory making rounds says that the R9 380 could either be a re-branded R9 285, or be based on its "Tonga" silicon, which physically features 2,048 stream processors based on Graphics CoreNext (GCN) 1.2 architecture, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. Another theory states that the R9 380 could be an OEM-only re-brand of the R9 280 or R9 280X, based on the 3+ year old "Tahiti" silicon.

The former theory sounds more plausible, because re-branding a "Tahiti" based product would be suicidal for AMD. Although based on GCN, "Tahiti" lacks a lot of architecture features introduced with "Hawaii" and "Tonga." AMD practically stopped optimizing games for "Tahiti," and some of its new features, such as FreeSync and XDMA CrossFire, can't be implemented on it. "Tonga," on the other hand, supports both these features, and one can create an SKU with all its 2,048 stream processors, and its full 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface unlocked. If the R9 380 is indeed an OEM-only product, then it's likely that the company's retail-channel products could be branded in the succeeding R9 400 series. GPU makers tend to re-brand and bump their SKUs by a series for OEMs to peddle in their "new" products at short notice.

AMD's upcoming Radeon R9 380X and R9 380 graphics cards, with which it wants to immediately address the GTX 980 and GTX 970, will be based on a "new" silicon codenamed "Grenada." Built on the 28 nm silicon fab process, Grenada will be a refined variant of "Hawaii," much in the same way as "Curacao" was of "Pitcairn," in the previous generation.

The Grenada silicon will have the same specs as Hawaii - 2,816 GCN stream processors, 176 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and a 512-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 4 GB memory. Refinements in the silicon over Hawaii could allow AMD to increase clock speeds, to outperform the GTX 980 and GTX 970. We don't expect the chip to be any more energy efficient at its final clocks, than Hawaii. AMD's design focus appears to be performance. AMD could save itself the embarrassment of a loud reference design cooler, by throwing the chip up for quiet custom-design cooling solutions from AIB (add-in board) partners from day-one.

AMD's next flagship single-GPU graphics card, codenamed "Fiji," could feature High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM). The technology allows for increased memory bandwidth using stacked DRAM, while reducing the pin-count of the GPU, needed to achieve that bandwidth, possibly reducing die-size and TDP. Despite this, "Fiji" could feature TDP hovering the 300W mark, because AMD will cram in all the pixel-crunching muscle it can, at the expense of efficiency from other components, such as memory. AMD is expected to launch new GPUs in 2015, despite slow progress from foundry partner TSMC to introduce newer silicon fabs; as the company's lineup is fast losing competitiveness to NVIDIA's GeForce "Maxwell" family.

It turns out that the big OEM design win liquid cooling solutions maker Asetek was bragging about, is the Radeon R9 390X, and the "undisclosed OEM" AMD. Pictures of a cooler shroud is doing rounds on Chinese tech forums, which reveals something that's similar in design to the Radeon R9 295X2, only designed for single-GPU. The shroud has its fan intake pushed to where it normally is for single-GPU cards; with cutouts for the PCIe power connectors, and a central one, through which liquid cooling tubes pass through.

One can also take a peek at the base-plate of the cooler, which will cool the VRM and memory under the fan's air-flow. The cooler design reveals that AMD wants its reference-design cards to sound quieter "at any cost," even if it means liquid cooling solutions that can be messy with multi-card CrossFire setups, and in systems that already use liquid-cooling for the CPU; and leave it to AIB partners to come up with air-cooled cards, with meatier heatsinks. Other specs of the R9 390X are unknown, as is launch date. It could be based on a member of the "Pirate Islands" family of GPUs, of which the new "Tonga" GPU driving the R9 285 is a part of. A possible codename of AMD's big chip from this family is "Fiji."