AMD Radeon R9 290X Flagship Volcanic Islands GPU Official – Reclaims The.......

humbug · 27 Sep 2013 at 02:13

http://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-r9-2...-reclaims-single-gpu-performance-crown-titan/

AMD Retakes The Performance Throne With the Radeon R9 290X Hawaii GPU

Well, we will see ^^^^

specifications do look good (still not sure if true)

AMD has officially announced the Radeon R9 290X graphic card, their latest and greatest flagship GPU of the Volcanic Islands family featuring the top tier Hawaii chip. AMD also provided a detailed preview of the Hawaii GPU which is fused inside the heart of the Radeon R9 290X graphic card. More details regarding the Hawaii GPU can be found here.

The AMD Radeon R9 290X is the flagship graphic card entry in the Volcanic Islands R-200 series family from AMD. The new card makes use of the brand new Hawaii GPU architecture which is aimed directly against the top dog from NVIDIA aka the GK110 GPU. The Radeon R9 290X features a full blow Hawaii chip with 2816 Shaders (SPs), 44 ROPs (Raster Operators) and 176 TMUs (Texture mapping units). The Radeon R9 290X GPU is clocked at base clock of 800 MHz and supports GPU boost frequency upto 1000 MHz.

One of the biggest changes made by AMD in their Radeon R9 290X graphics card is the addition of 512-bit bus interface compared to the 384-bit bus on their last generation Radeon HD 7970. The Hawaii GPU comes with a total of 4 GB GDDR5 memory which is lower than the GK110 based Titan but higher than the 3 GB GeForce GTX 780 which falls just around the same price point. The higher 512-bit bus allows for ridiculously higher bandwidth over 300 GB/s which is sufficient enough for the Hawaii GPU. There are two CrossFireX connectors located on the PCB board which means that users would be able to do Quad-Way CrossFire with four of the Radeon R9 290X graphic cards.

As for the cooling mechanism, the Volcanic Islands series come with a fresh new shroud design. The new cooling design reminds me a lot of the Radeon 4870 x2 cooler which had a similarly large blower fan. The cooler may not feature the fancy manganese alloy metal as NVIDIA featured on their Titan and GTX 780 cooler but it still looks impressive and a move away from the brick shaped Radeon HD 6000 and 7000 series cards. The cooling design incorporates a large vapor chamber which is thrown air from the blower fan and blown out the exhaust vents. The Radeon R9 290X is powered by 6+8 Pin power configurations and has a rated TDP of 270W. Display outputs include Dual-DVI, HDMI and a display port.

Orangey · 27 Sep 2013 at 02:41

Nothing new here...

Kaapstad · 27 Sep 2013 at 03:50

It is going to need better specs than that in an apples to apples comparrison with a Titan.

@humbug, what do you recon the max overclock will be for a R9 290X on air.

humbug · 27 Sep 2013 at 03:56

Kaapstad said:
It is going to need better specs than that in an apples to apples comparrison with a Titan.

@humbug, what do you recon the max overclock will be for a R9 290X on air.

Are you sure? looks to me like they are about even

Hawaii 2816 < Titan 2668
Hawaii 512Bit < Titan 384Bit
Hawaii 44 > Titan 48

No idea how far it will overclock.

Suarez7 · 27 Sep 2013 at 04:01

humbug said:
Are you sure? looks to me like they are about even

Hawaii 2816 < Titan 2668
Hawaii 512Bit < Titan 384Bit
Hawaii 44 > Titan 48

No idea how far it will overclock.

You missed the TMU's out which Titan has more of as well.

Don't see the point in another one of these threads though.

Gibbo said yesterday that the 290X is just slightly faster than a 780.

humbug · 27 Sep 2013 at 04:04

The 780 is slight slower than the Titan, its a pretty narrow gap, and at stock it looks like the Hawaii XT is clocked lower.

Suarez7 said:
You missed the TMU's out which Titan has more of as well.

Don't see the point in another one of these threads though.

Aren't TMU's just Stream Processor clusters? all that mater is how may SP's there are in total, the 680 also had more TMU's @ 128 than the 7970 @ 112 and yet the 7970 was faster.

Kaapstad · 27 Sep 2013 at 04:09

humbug said:
Are you sure? looks to me like they are about even

Hawaii 2816 < Titan 2668
Hawaii 512Bit < Titan 384Bit
Hawaii 44 > Titan 48

No idea how far it will overclock.

You can not really compare them like that

The best way to do it is to compare the R9 290X to a HD 7970 and do the numbers, using the increase in shaders and the likely clockspeed.

I did this the other day and worked out with a 1200mhz GPU clockspeed the 290X would score 1523 on the Heaven 4 bench.

I have used this method in the past to compare a Titan to a GTX 680 and the accuracy of the prediction was within a couple of % when tested.

You may have noticed I have not mentioned vram, the way it seems to work is if it is fast enough with enough bandwidth it does not effect the other numbers.

See how close I am to 1523 on the Heaven 4 bench for a R9 290 running @1200 on the GPU and 1350 on the vram.

Having said that if someone can get a R9 290X upto 1300mhz on the GPU then things will get interesting and it should start beating the Titans.

Suarez7 · 27 Sep 2013 at 04:10

Texture mapping units, if you're gonna compare numbers then at least put em all in

Also the price looks like it's going to be £500, people have been getting this performance for 3-4 months with a 780 now so nothing special from AMD from what I've seen so far.

humbug · 27 Sep 2013 at 04:27

TMU's = SP's, it is there. ^^^

Kaapstad said:
You can not really compare them like that

The best way to do it is to compare the R9 290X to a HD 7970 and do the numbers, using the increase in shaders and the likely clockspeed.

I did this the other day and worked out with a 1200mhz GPU clockspeed the 290X would score 1523 on the Heaven 4 bench.

I have used this method in the past to compare a Titan to a GTX 680 and the accuracy of the prediction was within a couple of % when tested.

You may have noticed I have not mentioned vram, the way it seems to work is if it is fast enough with enough bandwidth it does not effect the other numbers.

See how close I am to 1523 on the Heaven 4 bench for a R9 290 running @1200 on the GPU and 1350 on the vram.

Having said that if someone can get a R9 290X upto 1300mhz on the GPU then things will get interesting and it should start beating the Titans.

R9 290X vs 7970

SP's +40%
ROP's +40%
Mem Bandwidth +33%

It also has 4 texture threads, up from 2 on the 7970 so thats +100%

The extra memory bandwidth will add half of the increase, so thats +15%, they are not Kepler GPU's, you can't compare apples to oranges, and any extra memory bandwidth always adds half the increase, your quite wrong about it not adding any performance increase. i have tested that extensively about a year ago, its why the 384Bit 7950 is so much faster than the 256Bit 7870 XT and the 7970 is not much faster than the 7950.

The other half comes from SP's or core clock, so thats 35%~, thats not adding any performance increase from the ROP's and texture threads, if any.

I think at those specifications it will be within 3 or 4% of the GTX Titan.

Its is not far off the same level more GPU than the Titan than the 7970 was to the 680, saying the memory will make no difference would make you right, but i think your wrong about that and i think there is a reason its there.

Kaapstad · 27 Sep 2013 at 05:44

humbug said:
TMU's = SP's, it is there. ^^^

R9 290X vs 7970

SP's +40%
ROP's +40%
Mem Bandwidth +33%

It also has 4 texture threads, up from 2 on the 7970 so thats +100%

The extra memory bandwidth will add half of the increase, so thats +15%, they are not Kepler GPU's, you can't compare apples to oranges, and any extra memory bandwidth always adds half the increase, your quite wrong about it not adding any performance increase. i have tested that extensively about a year ago, its why the 384Bit 7950 is so much faster than the 256Bit 7870 XT and the 7970 is not much faster than the 7950.

The other half comes from SP's or core clock, so thats 35%~, thats not adding any performance increase from the ROP's and texture threads, if any.

I think at those specifications it will be within 3 or 4% of the GTX Titan.

Its is not far off the same level more GPU than the Titan than the 7970 was to the 680, saying the memory will make no difference would make you right, but i think your wrong about that and i think there is a reason its there.

For the exercise you are over complecating it

I have made my prediction for Heaven 4 - R9 290X @1200/1350 will score 1523 @1080p extreme settings

What is you prediction

We will see whos right.

Gregster · 27 Sep 2013 at 07:20

Time will tell and if it does, happy days

(said with gritted teeth of course)

Buckster · 27 Sep 2013 at 07:45

how can we have an "official" thread - which has speculation and wild estimates of performance even in the title of it !

RavenXXX2 · 27 Sep 2013 at 08:08

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3MU-DIKvY3U#t=694

Cooler looks a lot better in this linus vid. The red bits illuminate, cool.

LtMatt · 27 Sep 2013 at 08:10

RavenXXX2 said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3MU-DIKvY3U#t=694

Cooler looks a lot better in this linus vid. The red bits illuminate, cool.

Cool beans.

Just like the Nvidia cards that light up green its a nice touch.

Kaapstad · 27 Sep 2013 at 08:12

It does look better in the video, unfortunately a card like this is crying out for waterblocks.

humbug · 27 Sep 2013 at 09:00

Kaapstad said:
For the exercise you are over complecating it

I have made my prediction for Heaven 4 - R9 290X @1200/1350 will score 1523 @1080p extreme settings

What is you prediction

We will see whos right.

alright your on

If those specs are right.

this is how i work it out:

7870 = 1280 SP's / 32 ROP's / 256Bit} x2 = 2560 SP's / 64 ROP's 512Bit, 2560 + 10% = 2816 - 20 ROP's = R9 290X

7870 Heaven 4 = 737 @ 1200 / 1500 x2 = 1474 + 10% = 1621 - 20 ROP's= ??????

i'm going for 1499 @ 1200 / 1350 (if the core can get that high)

RavenXXX2 said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3MU-DIKvY3U#t=694

Cooler looks a lot better in this linus vid. The red bits illuminate, cool.

That does look cool, still not sure i like it.

The Only Beardy · 27 Sep 2013 at 09:09

I understand that the Titan is the single GPU card to beat... but how does it compare to the 780? as it will be a similarly priced card...?

also... i know the R9 290x is the upgrade to the 7970, but what is the step down? which card is the upgrade to the 7950?

VincentHanna · 27 Sep 2013 at 09:21

The Only Beardy said:
I understand that the Titan is the single GPU card to beat... but how does it compare to the 780? as it will be a similarly priced card...?

also... i know the R9 290x is the upgrade to the 7970, but what is the step down? which card is the upgrade to the 7950?

Nothing really, anything other than the R290x, R290 and R260x are just re-branded 7 series cards with BIOS flashes.

Silent_Scone · 27 Sep 2013 at 09:24

too many threads about this now.

Still waiting on some performance figures, all the speculation is getting a bit tiring.

The Only Beardy · 27 Sep 2013 at 09:25

oh right... so unless im willing to spend £500 on a new card, there is little point in upgrading?

the new features that they talk about like Mantle... are they going to be supported by the 7 series cards? or will i have to upgrade to be able to take advantage?