Tag Archives: 290

Do AMD Drivers Really Deserve Such a Hostile Reception?

Posted on by John Williamson
8

Introduction

AMD has a serious image problem with their drivers which stems from buggy, unrefined updates, and a slow release schedule. Even though this perception began many years ago, it’s still impacting on the company’s sales and explains why their market share is so small. The Q4 2015 results from Jon Peddie Research suggests AMD reached a market share of 21.1% while NVIDIA reigned supreme with 78.8%. Although, the Q4 data is more promising because AMD accounted for a mere 18.8% during the last quarter. On the other hand, respected industry journal DigiTimes reports that AMD is likely to reach its lowest ever market position for Q1 2016. Thankfully, the financial results will emerge on April 21st so we should know the full picture relatively soon. Of course, the situation should improve once Polaris and Zen reach retail channels. Most importantly, AMD’s share price has declined by more than 67% in five years from $9 to under $3 as of March 28, 2016. The question is why?

Is the Hardware Competitive?

The current situation is rather baffling considering AMD’s extremely competitive product line-up in the graphics segment. For example, the R9 390 is a superb alternative to NVIDIA’s GTX 970 and features 8GB VRAM which provides extra headroom when using virtual reality equipment. The company’s strategy appears to revolves around minor differences in performance between the R9 390 and 390X. This also applied to the R9 290 and 290X due to both products utilizing the Hawaii core. NVIDIA employs a similar tactic with the GTX 970 and GTX 980 but there’s a marked price increase compared to their rivals.

NVIDIA’s ability to cater towards the lower tier demographic has been quite poor because competing GPUs including the 7850 and R9 380X provided a much better price to performance ratio. Not only that, NVIDIA’s decision to deploy ridiculously low video memory amounts on cards like the GTX 960 has the potential to cause headaches in the future. It’s important to remember that the GTX 960 can be acquired with either 2GB or 4GB of video memory. Honestly, they should have simplified the process and produced the higher memory model in a similar fashion to the R9 380X. Once again, AMD continues to offer a very generous amount of VRAM across various product tiers.

Part of the problem revolves around AMD’s sluggish release cycle and reliance on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) 1.1 architecture. This was first introduced way back in 2013 with the Radeon HD 7790. Despite its age, AMD deployed the GCN 1.1 architecture on their revised 390 series and didn’t do themselves any favours when denying accusations about the new line-up being a basic re-branding exercise. Of course, this proved to be the case and some users managed to flash their 290/290X to a 390/390X with a BIOS update. There’s nothing inherently wrong with product rebrands if they can remain competitive in the current market. It’s not exclusive to AMD, and NVIDIA have used similar business strategies on numerous occasions. However, I feel it’s up to AMD to push graphics technology forward and encourage their nearest rival to launch more powerful options.

Another criticism regarding AMD hardware which seems to plague everything they release is the perception that every GPU runs extremely hot. You only have to look on certain websites, social media and various forums to see this is the main source of people’s frustration. Some individuals are even known to produce images showing AMD graphics cards setting ablaze. So is there any truth to these suggestions? Unfortunately, the answer is yes and a pertinent example comes from the R9 290 range. The 290/290X reference models utilized one of the most inefficient cooler designs I’ve ever seen and struggled to keep the GPU core running below 95C under load.

Unbelievably, the core was designed to run at these high thermals and AMD created a more progressive RPM curve to reduce noise. As a result, the GPU could take 10-15 minutes to reach idle temperature levels. The Hawaii temperatures really impacted on the company’s reputation and forged a viewpoint among consumers which I highly doubt will ever disappear. It’s a shame because the upcoming Polaris architecture built on the 14nm FinFET process should exhibit significant efficiency gains and end the concept of high thermals on AMD products. There’s also the idea that AMD GPUs have a noticeably higher TDP than their NVIDIA counterparts. For instance, the R9 390 has a TDP of 275 watts while the GTX 970 only consumes 145 watts. On the other hand, the Fury X utilizes 250 watts compared to the GTX 980Ti’s rating of 275 watts.

Eventually, AMD released a brand new range of graphics cards utilizing the first iteration of high bandwidth memory. Prior to its release, expectations were high and many people expected the Fury X to dethrone NVIDIA’s flagship graphics card. Unfortunately, this didn’t come to fruition and the Fury X fell behind in various benchmarks, although it fared better at high resolutions. The GPU also encountered supply problems and emitted a large whine from the pump on early samples. Asetek even threatened to sue Cooler Master who created the AIO design which could force all Fury X products to be removed from sale.

The rankings alter rather dramatically when the DirectX 12 render is used which suggests AMD products have a clear advantage. Asynchronous Compute is the hot topic right now which in theory allows for greater GPU utilization in supported games. Ashes of the Singularity has implemented this for some time and makes for some very interesting findings. Currently, we’re working on a performance analysis for the game, but I can reveal that there is a huge boost for AMD cards when moving from DirectX11 to DirectX12. Furthermore, there are reports indicating that Pascal might not be able to use asynchronous shaders which makes Polaris and Fiji products more appealing.

Do AMD GPUs Lack Essential Hardware Features?

When selecting graphics hardware, it’s not always about pure performance and some consumers take into account exclusive technologies including TressFX hair before purchasing. At this time, AMD incorporates with their latest products LiquidVR, FreeSync, Vulkan support, HD3D, Frame rate target control, TrueAudio, Virtual Super resolution and more! This is a great selection of hardware features to create a thoroughly enjoyable user-experience. NVIDIA adopts a more secretive attitude towards their own creations and often uses proprietary solutions. The Maxwell architecture has support for Voxel Global Illumination, (VGXI), Multi Frame Sampled Anti-Aliasing (MFAA), Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR), VR Direct and G-Sync. There’s a huge debate about the benefits of G-Sync compared to FreeSync especially when you take into account the pricing difference when opting for a new monitor. Overall, I’d argue that the NVIDIA package is better but there’s nothing really lacking from AMD in this department.

Have The Drivers Improved?

Historically, AMD drivers haven’t been anywhere close to NVIDIA in terms of stability and providing a pleasant user-interface. Back in the old days, AMD or even ATI if we’re going way back, had the potential to cause system lock-ups, software errors and more. A few years ago, I had the misfortune of updating a 7850 to the latest driver and after rebooting, the system’s boot order was corrupt. To be fair, this could be coincidental and have nothing to do with that particular update. On another note, the 290 series was plagued with hardware bugs causing black screens and blue screens of death whilst watching flash videos. To resolve this, you had to disable hardware acceleration and hope that the issues subsided.

The Catalyst Control Center always felt a bit primitive for my tastes although it did implement some neat features such as graphics card overclocking. While it’s easy enough to download a third-party program like MSI Afterburner, some users might prefer to install fewer programs and use the official driver instead.

Not so long ago, AMD appeared to have stalled in releasing drivers for the latest games to properly optimize graphics hardware. On the 9th December 2014, AMD unveiled the Catalyst 14.12 Omega WHQL driver and made it ready for download. In a move which still astounds me, the company decided not to release another WHQL driver for 6 months! Granted, they were working on a huge driver redesign and still produced the odd Beta update. I honestly believe this was very damaging and prevented high-end users from considering the 295×2 or a Crossfire configuration. It’s so important to have a consistent, solid software framework behind the hardware to allow for constant improvements. This is especially the case when using multiple cards which require profiles to achieve proficient GPU scaling.

Crimson’s release was a major turning point for AMD due to the modernized interface and enhanced stability. According to AMD, the software package involves 25 percent more manual test cases and 100 percent more automated test cases compared to AMD Catalyst Omega. Also, the most requested bugs were resolved and they’re using community feedback to quickly apply new fixes. The company hired a dedicated team to reproduce errors which is the first step to providing a more stable experience. Crimson apparently loads ten times faster than its predecessor and includes a new game manager to optimize settings to suit your hardware. It’s possible to set custom resolutions including the refresh rate, which is handy when overclocking your monitor. The clean uninstall utility proactively works to remove any remaining elements of a previous installation such as registry entries, audio files and much more. Honestly, this is such a revolutionary move forward and AMD deserves credit for tackling their weakest elements head on. If you’d like to learn more about Crimson’s functionality, please visit this page.

However, it’s far from perfect and some users initially experienced worse performance with this update. Of course, there’s going to be teething problems whenever a new release occurs but it’s essential for AMD to do everything they can to forge a new reputation about their drivers. Some of you might remember, the furore surrounding the Crimson fan bug which limited the GPU’s fans to 20 percent. Some users even reported that this caused their GPU to overheat and fail. Thankfully, AMD released a fix for this issue but it shouldn’t have occurred in the first place. Once again, it’s hurting their reputation and ability to move on from old preconceptions.

Is GeForce Experience Significantly Better?

In recent times, NVIDIA drivers have been the source of some negative publicity. More specifically, users were advised to ignore the 364.47 WHQL driver and instructed to download the 364.51 beta instead. One user said:

“Driver crashed my windows and going into safe mode I was not able to uninstall and rolling back windows would not work either. I ended up wiping my system to a fresh install of windows. Not very happy here.”

NVIDIA’s Sean Pelletier released a statement at the time which reads:

“An installation issue was found within the 364.47 WHQL driver we posted Monday. That issue was resolved with a new driver (364.51) launched Tuesday. Since we were not able to get WHQL-certification right away, we posted the driver as a Beta.

GeForce Experience has an option to either show WHQL-only drivers or to show all drivers (including Beta). Since 364.51 is currently a Beta, gamers who have GeForce Experience configured to only show WHQL Game Ready drivers will not currently see 364.51

We are expecting the WHQL-certified package for the 364.51 Game Ready driver within the next 24hrs and will replace the Beta version with the WHQL version accordingly. As expected, the WHQL-certified version of 364.51 will show up for all gamers with GeForce Experience.”

As you can see, NVIDIA isn’t immune to driver delivery issues and this was a fairly embarrassing situation. Despite this, it didn’t appear to have a serious effect on people’s confidence in the company or make them re-consider their views of AMD. While there are some disgruntled NVIDIA customers, they’re fairly loyal and distrustful of AMD’s ability to offer better drivers. The GeForce Experience software contains a wide range of fantastic inclusions such as ShadowPlay, GameStream, Game Optimization and more. After a driver update, the software can feel a bit unresponsive and takes some time to close. Furthermore, some people dislike the notion of GameReady drivers being locked in the GeForce Experience Software.  If a report from PC World is correct, consumers might have to supply an e-mail address just to update their drivers through the application.

Before coming to a conclusion, I want to reiterate that my allegiances don’t lie with either company and the intention was to create a balanced viewpoint. I believe AMD’s previous failures are impacting on the company’s current product range and it’s extremely difficult to shift people’s perceptions about the company’s drivers. While Crimson is much better than CCC, it’s been the main cause of a horrendous fan bug resulting in a PR disaster for AMD.

On balance, it’s clear AMD’s decision to separate the Radeon group and CPU line was the right thing to do. Also, with Polaris around the corner and more games utilizing DirectX 12, AMD could improve their market share by an exponential amount. Although, from my experience, many users are prepared to deal with slightly worse performance just to invest in an NVIDIA product. Therefore, AMD has to encourage long-term NVIDIA fans to switch with reliable driver updates on a consistent basis. AMD products are not lacking in features or power, it’s all about drivers! NVIDIA will always counteract AMD releases with products exhibiting similar performance numbers. In my personal opinion, AMD drivers are now on par with NVIDIA and it’s a shame that they appear to be receiving unwarranted criticism. Don’t get me wrong, the fan bug is simply inexcusable and going to haunt AMD for some time. I predict that despite the company’s best efforts, the stereotypical view of AMD drivers will not subside. This is a crying shame because they are trying to improve things and release updates on a significantly lower budget than their rivals.

Corsair Releases Hydro Series HG10 GPU Liquid Cooling Bracket

Posted on by Bohs Hansen
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Corsair announced the immediate availability of the Hydro Series HG10 A1 Edition GPU liquid cooling bracket for AMD Radeon R9 290X and 290 graphics cards. The HG10 isn’t just an AIO bracket with a fan, it’s also a heatsink at the same time, a thing that has been missing on current competitor offers.

You can combine a Corsair AIO cooler with this black anodized aluminium bracket to create an effective full-coverage GPU liquid cooling solution for all the vital parts of your graphics card. Adhesive heat-transfer pads have been aligned to cover RAM and VRMs while a fan blows cold air over the entire PCB in the same fashion a reference cooler would; but a lot less force is needed and a huge sound reduction is achieved.

The HG10 solution is said to be so effective that it can drop peak temperatures as much as 50 degrees while having significant lower noise levels. This should eliminate any form of thermal throttling as well as increase the overclocking headroom.

It also looks like the fan is a lot easier to remove and clean than what we’ve seen up until now on the Kraken G10, a small but very useful feature.

The Hydro Series HG10 A1 Edition GPU liquid cooling bracket is designed to support all stock reference versions of AMD Radeon R9 290X and 290X graphics cards. A full list of compatible cards can be found at corsair.com. New HG10 editions compatible with NVIDIA GeForce Titan, 7 Series, and other GPUs will be available in early 2015.

The MSRP is set to just $39.99 and should be available now or very shortly.

Thanks to Corsair for providing us with this information

Images courtesy of Corsair

OCUK Offering AMD’s Ultra Limited Civilization Beyond Earth Promotion + 4 More Games

Posted on by Peter Donnell
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Have you been saving up for a new AMD R9 290 graphics card? Then I have some very good news for you! Overclockers UK are taking part in AMD’s Ultra Limited Civilization Beyond Earth promotion. The new promotion, as its name would suggest, gives you a code to download the new Sid Meier game, but also gives you access to four other games as well!

Customers buying an AMD R9 290 will get a bundled copy of Civ:BE, as well as an AMD Gold level reward code and a Bronze level reward code. The Gold code entitles you to pick from three AAA titles from the AMD promotion. The promotion includes incredible games such as Aliens Isolation, Star Citizen and a whole lot more. The Bronze code will entitle you to an additional game from the same selection; that’s five premium games in total!

If you’re eager to pick up a 290 graphics card, now would be the perfect time to do so as you could save yourself a small fortunate in games.

Grab the ultra limited deal here.

Thank you Overclockers UK for providing us with this information.

AMD Slashes R9 280 & R9 290 Cards

Posted on by Peter Donnell
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AMD’s R9 290X

AMD have always strived to offer great value for money and their price vs performance ratios have always proven to be a thorn in the side of Nvidia. While Nvidia may be plowing through the industry with a few higher performance cards, AMD are dropping their prices on higher performance products to better compete with Nvidia in their respective price ranges.

While some may say this is AMD trying to keep up, I say “who cares!”, fact is that as a consumer, we’re the ones who win in this graphics card battle and with AMD now dropping the prices of their R9 290 and R9 280 series graphics cards even further, despite the fact they lowered them just last month! It’s never been a better time to buy an AMD card.

The Radeon R9 290X is down from $449 to $399, a far cry from the $549 starting price when the card was launched. The standard Radeon R9 290 is down from its $399 launch price to a very reasonable $299; that’s right, a 290 is now less than $300!

The R9 280X is down to just $270, only $30 short of the 290, but the cards are quite close in terms of performance. One of the best discounts is that the recently launched R9 285 “Tonga” is now down to just $229, putting it within $10 of the GTX 760 price.

There are now a wide range of very high performance cards available for around $300 and with the GeForce GTX 970 available for $329, high-end PC gaming has never been so affordable.

Thank you WCCFTech for providing us with this information.

Swiftech Komodo R9-LE GPU Water Block Released

Posted on by Peter Donnell
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Swiftech has just revealed their new Komodo R90LE VGA water block, and as the name might suggest it is fully compatible with the AMD Radeon 290 and 290X graphics cards. This follows in the footsteps of the company launching their Apogee XL and Komodo-NV LE cooling blocks for the Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan, Titan Black, 780 and 780ti.

The new cooler will run on the reference AMD PCB designs for the 290 and 290X, offering massive improvements in cooling for those willing to setup a custom radiator and pump loop for their GPU. The coolant will pass over all the major components for these cards, taking care of the GPU, memory and power MOSFETs.

No components will be left exposed as the block covers the full PCB, and this means you get to see more of that gorgeous brushed aluminium black plate which comes included with the block. Those wanting an extra touch of style can take advantage of the interchangeable colour strips which light up the coolant window and front logo plate in a choice of four colours; green, red, blue or clear. The cooler is available now from all your usual online retailers and is priced around $179.95

Thank you TechPowerUp for providing us with this information.

Images courtesy of TechPowerUp.

New AMD Never Settle Forever Gaming Bundle Launching Next Week

Posted on by Peter Donnell
3

AMD have had massive success from their Never Settle bundles, offering gamers a huge saving on their graphics cards by bundling many of today’s top gaming titles. Of course some of those games are getting a little older now, but that’s spurred AMD to go back to the drawing board and make a few tweaks to their playlist, and they’ll be relaunching the revised bundle on the 21st of this month.

The bundle will be divided over three tiers, those who buy a R9 295X2, R9 290(x) or R9 280(x) will be entitled to pick three games, R9 270(x) and R7 260 purchasers can pick two games and finally R5 250 and R7 240 will allow you one title from the list. The keys that are bundled with the cards can be activated up until August 2014.

The latest title to the list will be Murdered: Soul Suspect, which is not yet released, but will pre-activate for download in June and you’ll also not the addition of 4 indie games which will be available in packs of two (of your choosing).

The rest is pretty much the same, so you can still expect the big hitters such as Tomb Raider and Hitman, but BioShock, Crysis and Far Cry are unfortunately gone in favour of Thief, which now supports both AMD TrueAudio and Mantle.

Check out the list below for full details and thank you VideoCardz.com for providing us with this chart.

Thank you VideoCardz for providing us with this information.

Images courtesy of VideoCardz.

First Retail Asus Radeon R9 295X2 Pictured

Posted on by Peter Donnell
6

It looks like the guys over at WCCFtech have got their hands on some images of the new R9 295X2, AMD’s latest dual Hawaii based graphics card which is set to be launched very soon. We’ve already seen images and specifications for the new card, but now we see the first card from a manufacturer other than AMD reference.

OK so this is still a reference card design, as you can see it just features the Asus sticker on the fan, another on the radiator and Asus packaging. The only real difference for the consumer maybe price and warranty, which typically varies from brand to brand.

One thing we do like about the new packaging is that it confirms that the 295X2 is in fact an 8GB GDDR5 equipped card, as we did have some rumours that it was 16GB, but of course 8GB is more than enough, 16GB is just crazy. The card is also DirectX 11.2 ready, features the Hydra cooler which was specially made by Asatek and is expected to cost around $1500.

Thank you WCCFTech for providing us with this information.

Images courtesy of WCCFTech.

Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Vapor-X OC Released

Posted on by Peter Donnell
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Sapphire have just added another exciting product to their already awesome line up of graphics hardware, the AMD based Radeon R9 290 Vapor-X OC. The new 290 is packed with several industry leading technologies and some tasty factory overclocks that should set it apart from the rest of the competition, but those of you familiar with Sapphires higher end products will already know this.

The Sapphire R9 290 Vapox-X features 2560 Stream Processors, 4GB of GDDR5 memory at 1400 Mhz (4.6GB/s effective), and high speed engine clocks of 1030 MHz. This is all delivered through specially designed high quality component, most importantly the power control circuitry with uses Digital Power Control and the new Aero6 VRM section, delivering 6-phase power with high power Direct-FET technology for the GPU, memory and control circuits. All of this is kept in check by the Vapor-X series cooler.

“The new Vapor-X cooler uses SAPPHIRE’s latest and highly acclaimed Tri-X structure comprising five heatpipes and three efficient fans. The core heatpipe is an industry leading 10mm pipe, flanked by two 8 mm pipes and two 6 mm pipes ensuring even heat distribution across the cooler. The three 90 mm fans use aerofoil section blades for maximum airflow with minimum noise, and are each equipped with two sets of dust repelling ball bearings.” Said Sapphire in a recent press release.

The Vapor-X style coolers have already proven to be some of the coolest and quietest performing graphics thermal solutions on the market, so we’ll expect great things from their latest card. Not only does it promise to perform well, but it also looks stunning and the mixture of black with blue trim and that hefty back plate gives their new card a premium quality appearance.

“The SAPPHIRE R9 290 Vapor-X is equipped with a Dual BIOS – so at the touch of a button it can be switched between compatibility with the latest UEFI or for use in legacy based systems. For optimum performance this card should be used in a mainboard with PCI Express Gen 3.0 expansion slots. Multiple cards can be used in AMD CrossFire in a compatible mainboard.”

We look forward to checking out this card in the near future, expect it to start popping up at most popular online retailers over the next few days with a 15-20% premium over the stock R9 290 cards.

Thank you TechPowerUp for providing us with this information.

Images courtesy of TechPowerUp.

AMD Radeon R9 295X2 Stripped Down, New Images Leaked

Posted on by Peter Donnell
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It looks like the team over at Videocardz are happy to leak even more information on the upcoming Radeon R9 295X2 graphics card. The 295X2 is set to be the latest and greatest card from AMD, featuring two graphics 290x graphics cores and a high end hybrid cooling solution.

As you can see from the pictures here the card features two Hawaii based GPUs, each with their own 5+1 phase power delivery systems, a PLX chip that will handle the on-board CrossFire between the two cores and support for XDMA CrossFire which will allow you to hook up two R9 295X2 cards, technically quad-GPU’s.

The dual slot design of the card means that mounting it shouldn’t be much of an issue, and while we don’t have official sizes it’s obviously quite a long graphics cards. A single 92mm fan cools the ram and the VRM from the centre of the card and you’ll also find a pair of liquid cooling pumps running in tandem via a 120mm water cooling radiator, something that was said to be custom made by Asetek as part of AMD’s Project Hydra cooling system for this card.

Rumour has it that the card will set you back $1500, half of the price of the Nvidia GTX Titan Black, no doubt each card will have their own set of strength and weaknesses when we finally get to put them side by side on our test bench.

Thank you Hardware-360 for providing us with this information.

Images courtesy of VideoCards.

Official Radeon R9 295X2 Pictures And Specifications Unveiled

Posted on by Peter Donnell
1

While we’ve been quick to bring you all the latest rumours and leaks we can find about the new king of AMD graphics cards, it looks like the leaks have now become a full blown storm as the folks over at VideoCardz blow the lid off everything we wanted to know about the new dual-GPU graphics card.

As you can see from the image below, we can confirm that the R9 295X2 will feature two full Hawaii-XT graphics processors on a single PCB, giving it a staggering 5632 stream processors, 352 TMUs and a core clock speed of 1018 MHz.

The card will be backed up by 8GB of GDDR5 memory which runs on the 512-bit x2 memory bus at a speed of 1250 MHz (5000 MHz effective).

The card runs from dual 8pin power connectors, so there is no doubt that this will be a power hungry beast, in fact it’ll be able to churn up a TDP of 500W! Each Hawaii-XT core will have a 5+1 VRM, much like that of the 290X.

Both cores will be connected via the PLA chip and xDMA to help improve scaling and given that this card will be able to push video via its four DisplayPorts and a single DVI port, Eyefinity and 4K should be easy work for the 295X2.

The whole thing is cooled by what AMD are calling Project Hydra, which is just a fancy name for a 120mm water cooling radiator which comes with a push pull fan configurations, and two cooling tubes which are hooked up to individual GPU blocks. In the middle of the card is a red LED back-lit 92mm fan and you’ll also find a red LED light up Radeon logo on the side of the card.

That’s all for now, and while some of these cards show performance figures, I’ve always been wary of manufacturers in-house performance figures, we’ll wait for the real world results before we start weighing this thing up against the competition.

Thank you VideoCards for providing us with this information.

Images courtesy of VideoCards.

AMD “Hawaii” R9 295X2 Dual GPU Leaked?

Posted on by Peter Donnell
4

Tahiti based Ares GPU pictured

There have been a few quiet whispers and rumours about this legendary card for a while now, especially given that it’s not the first time we’ve seen dual GPU cards, it’s more a matter of “when will it be released” than “will it ever be released.” With Hawaii based hardware not well established in terms of the number of GPU’s available to the market, it’s about time AMD kicked things up a few notches.

The flagship dual-GPU card is believed to run a pair of 28nm “Hawaii” cores, and since Dutch publication BouweenPC has been digging in dark corners for information we now know that the card is to be called the Radeon R9 295X2. Both the cores are expect to have a clock speed of no less than 1000 MHz and will feature hybrid cooling prevent them from melting through the Earth’s crust.

Hybrid air and liquid cooling is nothing new for graphics cards, just look at the insane Asus Republic of Gamers ARES II graphics card. The new dual GPU card will benefit from two GPU liquid cooling blocks, while relying on airflow to cool other components such as the VRM and memory.

There is no doubt in my mind that this card is out there, and you can expect more details start cropping up over the next few weeks. As for pricing, expect it to be a fantastically big number, because flagship dual GPU cards with water cooling do not come cheap.

Thank you TechPowerUp for providing us with this information.

Club 3D Radeon R9 290 and 290X royalACE GPUs Revealed

Posted on by Peter Donnell
1

Club 3D have just announced two new entries to their royalAce range of graphics cards. As you may know, Club 3D have been using their Poker Series of graphics card classification for a while now and royalAce grade cards are top of the pack. Adding to their flagship series of graphics cards is the all new Radeon R9 290 and the R9 290X.

The new royalAce Radeon R9 290 is packed with features, with 2560 stream processors and 4GB of GDDR5 RAM packed under its triple fan cooler and a clock speed of 1040GHz, making it one of the fastest graphics  cards available on the market.

The 290 may be one of the fastest, but it’s still a runt compared to the beast that is the new royalAce R9 290X. With all the settings dialled up to 11, the 290X featured 2816 stream processors, 4GB of GDDR5, a core clock speed of 1050MHz (10MHz faster than the R9 290).

Both cards are much faster than the reference Hawaii 290 and 290x designs, with custom hardware that has been tweaked and tuned to offer faster and more reliable performance.

We don’t have exact pricing at the moment, but you can expect they’ll be expensive given that they’re some of the best GPU’s around, and expect to pay a 10-20% premium over reference cards retail prices.

Thank you Club-3D for providing us with this information.

Images courtesy of Club-3D.

Radeon R9 290X And Radeon R9 X-Edition Graphics Cards Released By VTX3D

Posted on by Gabriel Roşu
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VTX3D has recently released two additions to its graphic card line-up, the Radeon R9 290X and Radeon R9 290 X-Edition with dual fan cooling design. The two very best graphics cards use great quality power design and custom dual fan cooling solution, delivering faster, cooler and quieter performance to all gamers.

Both are equipped with 4 GB of the latest high performance GDDR5 memory connected via 512 bit memory interface. The R9 290X X-Edition runs core engine at 1030 MHz and 1250 MHz for memory, while the R9 290 X-Edition runs at 975/1250 MHz for core/memory. Both are 30 MHz higher than reference design in engine clock, providing excellent performance and ultimate gaming power to every enthusiastic gamer.

The two models use great quality power design, which includes digital PWM, Multi Phase Design, Ferrite Core Choke and SVI2 power management, increasing the overall stability and power supply efficiency perfectly. In addition, the VTX3D R9 290X and R9 290 X-Edition are equipped with advanced dual fan cooling module. The advanced dual fan cooling module features dual 90 mm large fan, GSG-shape copper heat pipes with wide range of aluminum cooling fins, bring extraordinary heat dissipation effect.

Thank you TechPowerUp for providing us with this information
Image courtesy of TechPowerUp

Radeon R9 290 Series Double Dissipation Released By XFX

Posted on by Gabriel Roşu
1

XFX rolled out its first non-reference design Radeon R9 290 series graphics cards, the Radeon R9 290X Double Dissipation (model: R9-290X-EDFD), and the R9 290 Double Dissipation (model: R9-290A-EDFD).

Both Radeon R9 290X DD and R9 290 DD look exactly the same. The difference lays under the clocks, the difference is also quite disappointing as most would think. XFX did not overclock these cards, so they come with default clocks: 947 and 1000 MHz. The cards however are fully custom-built. They feature something known as XFactor, which stands for Solid Capacitors, Ferrite Core Chokes and Dust-Free IP-5X Fan. At this point we don’t know how modified is the board of these cards (I expect PCB to be the same for both Hawaii PRO and XT).

XFX also released a teaser with an illuminating logo. I’m not sure if this is actually a new feature, because XFX does not mention that in their overview, but it does look different than R9 280X cooling system so this has to be a glowing thing.

Unfortunately XFX equipped both cards with default power connectors (6+8pin). No price and availability date were mentioned. Personally I think this is one of the best looking R9 290X on the market, so it’s definitely worth a wait.

Thank you VideoCardz for providing us with this information
Images courtesy of VideoCardz

MSI Announces Its Radeon R9 290 GAMING 4G and Radeon R9 290X GAMING 4G

Posted on by Gabriel Roşu
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The long expected MSI R9 290 GAMING 4G and R9 290X GAMING 4G are now available. Packed with all of the power and features to drive UltraHD gaming resolutions the MSI Twin Frozr IV Advanced now ensures your card runs cool so you can enjoy maximum performance because AMD’s PowerTune technology enables the R9 290 GAMING 4G and R9 290X GAMING 4G to run at their highest clock speeds. With support for the latest industry standards and exciting new technology such as Mantle support in Battlefield 4.

Thanks to the bundled MSI GAMING App gamers can quickly switch between three pre-sets including a silent mode optimized for power efficiency and an overclocking and OC Mode to get the most power out of your graphics card, without worrying about learning how to overclock. The R9 290 GAMING 4G and R9 290X GAMING 4G have been designed to give you a gaming experience that delivers you true next-gen performance for ultra HD resolutions without sacrificing on thermals to kick-start your gaming rig for 2014.

MSI Radeon R9 290X Gaming 4G
MSI Radeon R9 290 Gaming 4G

Stay cool in combat
The MSI Twin Frozr IV Advanced has been completely customized for the R9 290 GAMING 4G and R9 290X GAMING 4G to deliver the best thermal experience. The design uses a larger copper base for heat absorption and the heat pipes are in contact with a bigger part of the heat sink and exposed to more airflow to ensure the highest performance of the GPU because of optimal temperatures. Combined with the dual form-in-one heat sinks that add both cooling ability and structural reinforcement the R9 290 GAMING 4G and R9 290X GAMING 4G stay cool and safe.

Optimized for Gamers
The new R9 290 GAMING 4G and R9 290X GAMING 4G are packed with features that benefit every gamer. AMD TrueAudio technology allows far more realistic positional audio and the added benefit of surround sound over connected displays. Mantle allows game developers to directly speak to the GPU optimizing GPU performance. This can all be displayed in a glorious UltraHD / 4K resolution as the new R9 290 GAMING 4G and R9 290X GAMING 4G is leading in performance at 4K resolutions. This can be easily connected through the DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort connectors. Up to six dedicated displays can be connected to the R9 290 GAMING 4G and R9 290X GAMING 4G for an amazing Eyefinity experience.

Thank you Guru3D for providing us with this information
Images courtesy of MSI