By Elric Phares
AMD fans have been holding their collective breath just waiting for something from AMD to come out and beat NVIDIA’s Titan, and if what we see on paper is true that time may just have arrived. AMD has flown out their hand-picked reviewers for an event in Hawaii where they have dumped huge amounts of cash in order to not only announce their new products, but to insure those members of the press get the correct and accurate information from AMD about them. I am sure Hawaii is nice this time of year and since the silicon is code-named Hawaii, why not?
It seems though that has also led to a few new leaks about AMD’s latest venture, the Radeon R9-290X will be surfacing in the near future and here is what we have heard thus far about it. The new Hawaii XT (GCN 2.0) R9-290X has 2816 stream processors, split among 44 clusters. Most likely we will see 64 ROPs (render output units), and around 176 TMUs (texture mapping units). The GPU should be clocked at around 900MHz, and there will be a fast 512-bit memory bus to GDDR5 RAM. The leaked benchmarks peg the Radeon R9-290X as equal or slightly faster than NVIDIA’s GTX Titan, and around 10% faster than the GTX 780; and if it’s priced right, it could put AMD back in the driving seat.
AMD is also slated to release its new Graphics Core Next or GCN 2.0 technology sometime this week as well as chips based on GCN 2.0 including Hawaii, Hawaii Pro and Hawaii XT, all supposedly coming this October. Once the NDA lifts and actual cards are around all these new technologies can be torn apart and explained, but for now we at least know for sure AMD is coming back on the attack. From the photos that have been leaked there are 16 memory chips, which would indicate that the R9-290X has a 512-bit memory bus to 4GB of GDDR5 RAM (rather than 384-bit, which is usually associated with 12 chips). The die size of the chip (which is presumed to be the Hawaii XT) is estimated to be around 424 millimeters square larger than the Radeon 7970′s GPU (Tahiti XT), but smaller than GTX Titan’s GK110.
So far this all sounds like solid stuff and if what we see from the leaks is real, the R9-290X posts up to 10% better performance than the Titan. From previous leaks, we believe that the Hawaii XT has up to 2816 stream processors, split among 44 clusters, with up to 64 ROPs and 176 TMUs. It will almost certainly be built by TSMC on its 28nm process. The chip will be clocked at around 900MHz, but there’s been nothing yet on the memory bus speed, but we can assume it will be fast. The graphs we show below are from leaks around the world and In the benchmarks below the graphic card’s name has been blanked out, but it’s probably the R9-290X, but it could also be the Hawaii Pro-based R9-290 (which will probably be quite similar to the X, just clocked slower). If this does pan out to be true, which I hope it does, AMD will once again move forward on the chessboard.
- Tomb Raider
- Unigine Valley
- Alien vs Predator 3
Being that the new card seems to be just a bit faster than the current Titan it seems that he who has the best price will be the dominator for at least a few months and we all know AMD usually is the price point contender. If AMD continues in that trend, I am sure they will see a huge rise in their sales and new blood never hurts a waning market. Industry sources state that a $600 price point is set for the R9-290X, which would put it well below the GTX Titan’s $1,000 price tag, and cheaper even than the $650 GTX 780. NVIDIA is not one to stand around on laurels and you can be damn sure they stay in the game and AMD will force them to lower prices and offer more, which in turn is only good for the end user who has to shell out the cash to buy them. Maxwell Keplar’s successor will hit the shelves in 2014, but for right now AMD can be in a pretty sweet spot for the next few months and holiday season. When the cards do hit the market we will begin the actual testing and reviews of them and I do not think we have long to wait. Thanks for reading tech Of Tomorrow, AMD fans today is the dawn of a new era for the desktop GPU, welcome home.
Source: Extreme Tech
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