AMD is signing off the current-generation of graphics cards with the new Radeon Pro Duo, a dual-GPU monstrosity that packs a pair of "Fiji" GPUs, in the same configuration as the company's current flagship, the Radeon R9 Fury X. In the absence of any competition from the GeForce "Maxwell" family, it could end up being the fastest graphics card money can buy for some time. Although AMD is pricing the card at the same US $1,499 it asked for the Radeon R9 295X2, it's marketing the card in a category that's between the Radeon "consumer" and the FirePro "professional" lineup. Its marketing tagline reads "for creators who game, and gamers who create."
By "creators," AMD isn't necessarily referring to content creators in general, those who use top-of-the-line FirePro cards for their top-dollar visual effects production, but VR content creators. AMD, like NVIDIA, is betting heavily on virtual reality (VR) to become a mass-medium. Unlike TVs and other screens, VR adds a new element - the user's ability to choose which part of the content to consume by simply moving their head around.
Although the concept of VR is hardly new, the prohibitive amount of computational power it takes to present live-action and gaming VR content has kept it from consumers. Sure, your Oculus Rift or HTC Vive headset has fewer pixels than a $200 monitor, but it takes a lot more computational power to make sure it responds instantaneously to your head's movements to present content like in the real world. Any latency between your input and that response could cause nausea and vertigo because beyond a certain point, your brain begins to see VR as the real world, expecting it to obey the laws of physics, and that takes a lot of GPU pixel-crunching power.
The Radeon Pro Duo currently has no competitive landscape. As we mentioned earlier, NVIDIA did not launch a dual-GPU graphics card based on its GM200 silicon, and as such, the price-cut $1,500 GeForce GTX TITAN Z is the closest competitor, though based on the older "Kepler" architecture. It could be competed with and probably even be outperformed by a pair of GeForce GTX 980 Ti graphics cards, but that's a different kind of solution. People buy dual-GPU graphics cards because it gives them the convenience of a single card and because it allows them to have four GPUs in a machine with just two PCI-Express x16 slots.
Radeon Pro Duo Market Segment Analysis
GeForce GTX 980
Radeon R9 390X
Radeon R9 Fury
Radeon R9 Fury X
GeForce GTX 980 Ti
GeForce GTX TITAN X
Radeon R9 295X2
GeForce GTX TITAN Z
Radeon Pro Duo
Shader Units
2048
2816
3584
4096
2816
3072
2x 2816
2x 2880
2x 4096
ROPs
64
64
64
64
96
96
2x 64
2x 48
2x 64
Graphics Processor
GM204
Grenada
Fiji
Fiji
GM200
GM200
Vesuvius
2x GK110
Capsaicin
Transistors
5200M
6200M
8900M
8900M
8000M
8000M
2x 6200M
2x 7080M
2x 8900M
Memory Size
4 GB
8 GB
4 GB
4 GB
6 GB
12 GB
2x 4 GB
2x 6 GB
2x 4 GB
Memory Bus Width
256 bit
512 bit
4096 bit
4096 bit
384 bit
384 bit
2x 512 bit
2x 384 bit
2x 4096 bit
Core Clock
1128 MHz+
1050 MHz
1000 MHz
1050 MHz+
1000 MHz+
1000 MHz
1018 MHz
705 MHz+
1000 MHz+
Memory Clock
1750 MHz
1500 MHz
500 MHz
500 MHz
1750 MHz
1750 MHz
1250 MHz
1750 MHz
500 MHz
Price
$470
$400
$520
$630
$620
$999
$620
$1499
$1499
This preview is a compilation of all the publicly available information of AMD's exciting new graphics card, which makes its retail debut on April 26, 2016. It will be sold in retail channel through AMD's AIB partners, and factory-fitted in various high-end gaming desktops.
Card images courtesy Expreview. Press-deck slides courtesy VideoCardz.