Sapphire announced a large contingent of Radeon R9/R7 series products, including three Radeon R9 280X products, the base model Dual-X, Vapor-X, and the Toxic. The three feature three different grades of factory-OC, and are priced in the range of $299 and $349. The Radeon R9 270X family from Sapphire is just as exhaustive, with three models with the same brand-extensions, priced in the range of $199 and $239. The rest of Sapphire's lineup includes R7 260X, R7 250, and R7 240 SKUs.

AMD announced market availability of several of its new Radeon R9 and Radeon R7 series discrete graphics SKUs. Leading the pack for today's launch is the Radeon R9 280X. Heavily based on the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, the card is priced at $299, and is designed to offer an interesting price-performance combination. In raw performance, it competes with the now $410 GeForce GTX 770, yet it's priced just $50 more than the $249 GeForce GTX 760. Based on the same 28 nm "Tahiti" silicon as the HD 7970 GHz Edition, it features clock speeds of 1000 MHz core, with 6.00 GHz memory. It features 2,048 stream processors, 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 3 GB of memory.

The next card on AMD's block is the Radeon R9 270X, which is designed to strike a price-performance sweet-spot at $199. Essentially an overclocked Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition, the card is based on the 28 nm "Pitcairn" silicon, featuring clock speeds of 1050 MHz core, and 6.40 GHz memory. It features 1,280 stream processors, 80 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory. Lastly, there's the Radeon R7 260X, an interesting sub-$150 product, priced at $139. Based on the same "Bonaire" silicon as the Radeon HD 7790, it features higher clock speeds, and double the standard memory amount. It features clock speeds of 1100 MHz, and 6.50 GHz memory. The chip features 896 stream processors, 56 TMUs, 16 ROPs, and a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory. The three cards will launch through the various AMD add-in board (AIB) partners, in their non-reference designs.

ASUS is working on an ROG MATRIX graphics card based on AMD's "new" Radeon R9 280X chip. Pictured below, the card features a meaty triple-slot cooling solution, and the same PCB as the one ASUS' HD 7970 MATRIX is based on, featuring a gargantuan 20-phase VRM, with TweakIT and ProbeIT mojo, fan panic switch, and dual BIOS. The card is expected to feature factory-overclocked speeds of 1100 MHz core, and 6.00 GHz memory. Given that these are pictures of a retail card, with its packaging, one can expect ASUS to launch the card along with its other SKUs, when the R9 280X is generally available.

Here are the first pictures of MSI's Radeon R9 280X Gaming and Radeon R9 270X HAWK graphics cards. The two feature MSI's TwinFrozr IV cooling solution, which made waves with the GeForce GTX 700 series. Captured from a PDF intended for distributors/retailers, the picture reveals an alleged R9 280X Gaming overlapping an R9 270X (which could be made out with its single CrossFire connector). MSI could launch two variants of the R9 280X Gaming, one which sticks to reference clock speeds, and the other factory-overclocked. The R9 270X HAWK could feature the highest level of factory-overclocking from MSI, for the chip.

AMD is planning a market release of three of its key sub-$300 graphics card SKUs, the Radeon R9 280X, Radeon R9 270X, and Radeon R7 260X, on the 8th of October, 2013. The three should be available for purchase on that date, and online reviews of the three should go live. AMD's add-in board (AIB) partners will launch non-reference design boards based on the three, although reference design boards should also be available. The Radeon R9 290X flagship part, on the other hand, should launch around October 15 in Europe (October 14 in the US by time conversion).

With AMD detailing its Radeon R9 and R7 series, especially at some very attractive sub-$299 price-points for the most part, there are jitters being felt at NVIDIA. The company is expected to unveil one or two new sub-$250 GeForce GTX SKUs around mid-October, 2013. The company is also expected to introduce price-cuts across its entire lineup, to make it competitive with AMD's. NVIDIA could tap into its existing GK104 and GK106 silicons to carve out the two new SKUs ranging between $149.99 and $249.99. The idea here would be to topple Radeon R9 270X. Price-cuts could be directed at the likes of GeForce GTX 760 and GTX 770, to make them competitive with the Radeon R9 280X, while in anticipation of the $599 pricing of the R9 290X, NVIDIA could rethink pricing of its $650 GeForce GTX 780, and $1000 GTX TITAN.

Although Radeon R9 280X has a lot in common with Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, AMD's AIB partners are expected to come up with entirely new board designs. A case in point is the XFX Double Dissipation card, pictured below. While we don't know if XFX is recycling PCB designs over from the HD 7970 GHz Edition, the cooler certainly looks new, with its tall and chunky aluminium fin heatsink that's fed by copper heat-pipes, and a pair of 100 mm fans. Its box speaks of an "unlocked voltage" feature.

Based on the 28 nm "Tahiti XTL" silicon, Radeon R9 280X features 2,048 GCN stream processors, 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 3 GB of memory. The GPU is expected to be clocked a notch above 1.00 GHz on XFX' card, and the memory around 6.40 GHz. Slated for October 3rd, the card is expected to be priced anywhere between $299 and $329.

Here's a quick recap of AMD's updated product stack, spread between the R9 and R7 series. This article can help you understand the new nomenclature. AMD's lineup begins with the Radeon R7 250 and Radeon R7 260X. The two are based on the 28 nm "Curacao" silicon, which is a variation of the "Pitcairn" silicon the previous-generation Radeon HD 7870 was based on. The R7 250 is expected to be priced around US $89, with 1 GB of RAM, and performance rated at over 2,000 points by 3DMark Firestrike benchmark. The R7 260X, features double the memory at 2 GB, higher clock speeds, possibly more number crunching resources, Firestrike score of over 3,700 points, and a pricing that's around $139. This card should turn up the heat against the likes of GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost.

Moving on, there's the $199 Radeon R9 270X. Based on a chip not much unlike "Tahiti LE," it features 2 GB of memory, and 3DMark Firestrike score of over 5,500 points. Then there's the Radeon R9 280X. This card, priced attractively at $299, is practically a rebrand of the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition with. It features 3 GB of RAM, and over 6,800 points on 3DMark Firestrike. Then there are the R9 290 and R9 290X. AMD flew dozens of scribes thousands of miles over to Hawaii, and left them without an official announcement on the specifications of the two. From what AMD told us, the two feature 4 GB of memory, over 5,000 TFLOP/s compute power, and over 300 GB/s memory bandwidth. The cards we mentioned are pictured in that order below.More pictures follow.

AMD's approach to the next-generation product stack isn't structured too differently from that of NVIDIA's current. The company is launching just one big (high-end) chip, codenamed "Hawaii," based on which it's launching the Radeon R9 290X. It's been detailed to death in our older posts. The Radeon R9 280X, on the other hand, is we're hearing a re-badged Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. At the most, expect a slight clock speed bump, and a different reference-design board, but for the most part, it's shaping up to be identical. The approach draws parallels with the NVIDIA's lineup. The Radeon R9 290X is expected to compete with the GeForce GTX TITAN, R9 290 with GTX 780, and R9 280X with the GTX 770. While launch of the R9 290 series will be tightly controlled by AMD (i.e., don't expect non-reference designs for a while), the R9 280X will launch entirely by non-reference designs. The three cards will launch a little later this week.

HIS posted placeholders on its website for various Radeon Rx 200 series products, before redacting it, but not before VideoCardz took a screengrab. The placeholders reveal nothing about the products, but their names, which include GPU name, memory (type/amount), and custom cooling solution, if any. The Radeon R9 280X IceQ X² leads the pack for HIS. There's nothing known just yet, but the listing reveals 3 GB of GDDR5 memory, and a custom cooling solution by HIS. From the R9 280X, HIS jumps straight down to the mainstream R7 250, and R7 240, with IceQ and iCooler variants of each, and variants based on slower DDR3 memory. The codename "Tahiti XTL" is floating around with the R9 280X. It could be anything from a cut-down 28 nm "Tahiti" silicon, to just a low-power variant of "Tahiti" as configured and clocked on the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. The real stuff (new high-end GPUs), is reserved for the R9 290 series (if there is one).A list of SKUs by HIS follows: