This has been a roller-coaster month for high-end PC graphics. The timing of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980 Ti launch had us giving finishing touches to its review with our bags to Taipei still not packed. When it launched, the GTX 980 Ti set AMD a performance target and a price target. Then began a 3-week wait for AMD to launch its Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card. The dance is done, the dust has settled, and we know who has won - nobody. AMD didn't get the R9 Fury X wrong, but NVIDIA got its GTX 980 Ti right. At best, this stalemate yielded a 4K-capable single-GPU graphics option from each brand at $650. You already had those in the form of the $650-ish Radeon R9 295X2, or a pair GTX 970 cards. Those with no plans of a 4K display already had great options in the form of the GTX 970, and price-cut R9 290X.

The Radeon R9 290 series launch from Fall-2013 stirred up the high-end graphics market in a big way. The $399 R9 290 made NVIDIA look comically evil for asking $999 for the card it beat, the GTX TITAN; while the R9 290X remained the fastest single-GPU option, at $550, till NVIDIA launched the $699 GTX 780 Ti, to get people back to paying through their noses for the extra performance. Then there were two UFO sightings in the form of the GTX TITAN Black, and the GTX TITAN-Z, which made no tangible contributions to consumer choice. Sure, they gave you full double-precision floating point (DPFP) performance, but DPFP is of no use to gamers. So what could have been the calculation at AMD and NVIDIA as June 2015 approached? Here's a theory.Image credit: Mahspoonis2big, Reddit

AMD is apparently working with its add-in board manufacturers and retailers to bring down prices of its flagship single-GPU graphics card, the Radeon R9 290X. The card can now be had for as low as $449, non-reference design, factory-overclocked cards starting at a $50 premium. Prices could settle down somewhere between $450 and $500. This closely follows AMD's move to bring down price of its dual-GPU flagship Radeon R9 295X2 by a whopping 34 percent, down to $999, offering performance competitive to the $2999 GeForce GTX TITAN-Z. NVIDIA is preparing two new graphics cards competitive in performance to the Radeon R9 290 series, the GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980. The two are based on the company's new 28 nm "GM204" silicon, implementing the "Maxwell" GPU architecture.

VisionTek Products LLC, (VisionTek), a leading manufacturer of award-winning, high-performance upgrades and accessories for PCs and Macs, today announced the addition of new graphics cards models, complete cooling kits, and card/cooling kit bundles to its high-performance liquid cooled PC compatible CryoVenom line. To complement the CryoVenom R9 290 liquid cooled graphics card, the "quietest, coolest, and fastest" single AMD GPU ever tested by PC Magazine, and Finalist in the Best New Product - Computer Hardware category of The 2014 American Business Awards, CryoVenom Liquid Cooling Kits were developed in conjunction with EKWB to solve four major concerns of those considering liquid cooling:

• Warranty. Modifications can void the warranty of a standard GPU. With a CryoVenom Liquid Cooling Kit, a system builder can still design and build a custom machine, yet enjoy the protection of a VisionTek warranty.
• Compatibility. Designed as a complete solution versus separately sourced components, certified-for-use kits are available for the VisionTek R9 290, 290X, and 295X2 graphics cards.
• Real World Use Tested. All components have been tested in actual use by the VisionTek Custom Shop team to ensure effective, high-performance liquid cooling.
• Ease of Installation. Everything is included - including pre-test and appearance convenience items - and were specifically designed to facilitate a quick, hassle-free install.

AMD is reportedly working on a new single-GPU graphics card SKU to compete with the likes of GeForce GTX 780 Ti, and perhaps even take a swing at the GTX TITAN Black, since it's not too far ahead of the GTX 780 Ti at single-display gaming. The new SKU will be more than just a clock-speed bump, it will leverage HBM (high-bandwidth memory), a cutting-edge new technology that relies on stacking multiple DRAM dies with dedicated memory paths into a single package, cutting down on power-draw, thermals, and PCB real-estate.

The first kind of HBMs to hit the market are 8 Gbit 4Hi, which will interface with the GPU over a 128-bit wide path, which means there will be just four memory packages on the card (since the "Hawaii" silicon features a 512-bit wide memory bus), with improvements in the area of power-draw and heat output. The memory could be clocked higher, too. Sadly, memory bandwidth is not the prime-mover in VGA performance, and AMD will have to offer higher GPU clocks for the card to stand a chance against NVIDIA's high-end single-GPU offerings. As for the name this card would bear, we get a sense of deja vu about how NVIDIA launched the single-GPU GeForce 7950 GTX alongside the dual-GPU 7950 GX2, replacing the 7900 GTX. And so, it wouldn't surprise us if AMD named it Radeon R9 295X.