AMD unleashes dual-GPU Radeon R9 295X2 graphics card

 The AMD Radeon R9 is already the leading graphics card family for the Bitcoin mining community, but the company is preparing to double their pleasure with its new R9 295X2, which manages to pack a pair of R9 290X GPUs into one board.

 As that suggests, the specs of the 295X2 are mostly those of the 290X -- times two. That means double the stream processors (5,632 total), double the video RAM (8GB in all), and, of course, double the power consumption (500 watts). There is a slight uptick in the peak clock speed, from 1000MHz to 1018MHz. In all, AMD claims there's 11.5 teraflops of computing power packed into the card.

 Because the 295X2 requires an additional 125 watts of power beyond what the company's previous dual-GPU card,the Radeon HD 7990, needed, AMD has enlisted Asetek to provide a closed-loop liquid cooling system with 120mm radiator (and a fan that lights up red) to keep things cooler and quieter. The card is built from powder-coated aluminum, though you'll only be able to appreciate the aesthetic appeal of the metal construction until you actually install it in your system.

 Once inside, the Radeon R9 295X2 performs, according to early reviews, as you might expect -- like a beast. Anandtech says AMD made "absolutely no performance compromises in putting a pair of Hawaii GPUs on to a single video card," while HotHardware concludes that "this is one of the most drool-worthy graphics cards to ever come out AMD."

 The price, however, will elicit more of a spit take than drooling. Expect the 295X2 to cost around $1,499 when it's released later this month -- obviously a ton of money considering that it will cost more than most PCs, but not crazy when compared to buying a pair of R9 290X cards and a liquid cooling solution separately. It's also half the amount for which Nvidia plans to sell its own dual-GPU super-card, the GeForce GTX Titan Z. If you'd rather purchase the 295X2 in a pre-built system, Maingear has already announced the Rush Vesuvius Edition, which starts at a cool $4,479 for a souped-up desktop that also includes an Intel Core i7-4820K quad-core processor, among other high-end specs.

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source:ZDnet

AMD introduces FirePro W9100 workstation graphics card

 AMD's FirePro W9000 was already the high end for the company's family of workstation graphics cards. But with the recent introduction of the Hawaii GPU to the Radeon R9 series of consumer boards, it was only a matter of time before joined the pro circuit.

 That comes with the FirePro W9100, which hasn't been fully detailed by AMD, but we know enough to glean some important differences from its predecessor. The obvious starter is the upgrade at GPU from the previous Tahiti chip -- the number of stream processor will increase from 2,048 to 2,816 and the number of texture units will rise from 128 to 176.

 The Hawaii GPU also takes advantage of version 1.1 of AMD's Graphics Core Next architecture, boosts the number of Asynchronous Compute Engines (ACEs) from two to eight, and adds 10GB more of video RAM to make the total a sizeable 16GB. AMD claims that it all adds up to multiple teraflops of computing power, along with the ability to handle up to six 4K monitors.

 With the launch of the W9100, the company is also taking the opportunity to introduce the FirePro workstation certification program. Dubbing it a "visual supercomputer for your desk," AMD is looking for manufacturers to produce systems with up to two 8-core CPUs, a minimum of 32GB of RAM, and up to four W9100 cards. Depending on the configuration, the workstation will fall into either the CAD/digital content creation tier, digital video editing tier, or 4K color collection tier.

 AMD will reveal the remaining specs for the FirePro W9100 next month, presumably including price. Since it's an upgrade on the W9000, expect a corresponding increase in cost.

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source:ZDnet

First Consumer Graphics Card With 8 GB GDDR5 VRAM

Sapphire Radeon R9 290X VAPOR-X Unveiled – First Consumer Graphics Card With 8 GB GDDR5 VRAM

 Sapphire Technology’s upcoming Radeon R9 290X VAPOR-X which would go on to become the first consumer graphics card with 8 GB GDDR5 VRAM has been leaked by Videocardz. The memory has doubled over AMD’s reference design which would result in better performance in high resolution gaming.

 The Sapphire Radeon R9 290X VAPOR-X features the AMD Hawaii XT GPU sporting 2816 Stream processors, 176 TMUs, 64 Render back-ends and a 4 GB GDDR5 memory operating along a 512-bit bus interface. The core and memory frequencies were not mentioned but we are certain that the card would be clocked beyond the 1000 MHz mark for the core since the card is equipped with a non-reference PCB design which equates into greater stability and overclocking capabilities over the reference variant.

 The Radeon R9 290X VAPOR-X is a leap over the Tri-X OC variant from Sapphire in terms of board power and cooling. The Tri-X OC comes with a reference design while the cooler is a beefy tri-fan dual slot heatsink with enough capability to cool the massive Hawaii chip. We are short of details regarding the PCB design at the moment but it would certainly be made of high quality components considering the premium price tag you *consumers will have to dish out for this product.

 Sapphire has taken a step forward in cooling with their VAPOR-X variant which in addition to the better fan tri-fan cooler which cools a large aluminum fin heatsink beneath it and houses several heatpipes, the Radeon R9 290X VAPOR-X also features a massive backplate that helps cool down the memory chips and several heatshrinks do provide cooling to the MOSFETs beneath the PCB. The cooler is massive and may take three expansion slots space while installation so that would limit the use of four of these cards in CrossFireX unless you’re using a high-end E-ATX form factor motherboard with PCI-E slots stacked in the proper arrangement. Display outputs include Dual-DVI, HDMI and a Display port slot, price for the Radeon R9 290X VAPOR-X is not confirmed yet but we can expect a huge premium over the $549 possibly going past the $799 mark. Launch is expected just around the corner as with other non-reference R9 290X products such as MSI’s Radeon R9 290X Lightning.

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 source: wccftech.com