290 minus the X

Communities Blog
1

GPU

MANUFACTURER:AMD

SPECS STATUS:Rumored

GPU SERIES:Radeon R9 200

GPU MODEL:Hawaii PRO

FABRICATION PROCESS:28nm

STREAM PROCESSORS:2560

TMUS:160

ROPS:64

 

CARD

DIMENSIONS (INCHES):11 / 4.2 / Dual-slot

DISPLAY OUTPUTS:– / 2 / 1 / 1 / – / -

 

SUPPORT

BUS SUPPORT:PCI-E 3.0 x16

DIRECTX SUPPORT:11.2

OPENGL SUPPORT:4.2

 

CLOCKS

CORE CLOCK:800 MHz

BOOST CLOCK:947 MHz

MEMORY CLOCK:1250 MHz

EFFECTIVE MEMORY CLOCK:5000 MHz

 

MEMORY

MEMORY SIZE:4096 MB

MEMORY TYPE:GDDR5

MEMORY BUS TYPE:512-bit

MEMORY BANDWIDTH:320 GB/sec

 

POWER

POWER DRAW230 W / – W

MIN REQUIRED PSU:500 W

POWER CONNECTORS:2 x 6-pin

TEMPERATURE:– C / – C / – C

NOISE LEVEL:– dBA / – dBA

 

 

PERFORMANCE

 

3DMARK11 SCORE– ?

3DMARK VANTAGE– ?

 

RELEASE

RELEASE DATE:Q4 2013

LAUNCH PRICE:$499

2

Hmmmmmmmmm...

3

You know, if the R9 290X came at around 549$ USD, than selling the R9 290 Non-X for 499$ makes no sense whatsoever.

It makes much more sense for AMD to sell it for 449$, or even 399$. Depends on how much the performance difference is. If it's 399$, it might cannibalize sales from the R9 290X, since people who might have bough a single R9 290X might go for 2x R9 290 Non-X in CrossFire. If it's 449$, it might not have the right price-to-performance to make it worth buying, meaning AMD would have literally nothing in between the R9 290X and R9 280X that could compete with nVidia.

I think 449$ makes more sense for AMD than 499$ does. And I hear at the end of November, to early 2014 (like January) we'll start seeing custom cooler and custom PCB designs for R9 290X and 290 Non-X cards. It'll be very good to no longer have to deal with obnoxiously loud rockets-taking-off-carrying-the-space-shuttle-at-launch R9 290X coolers.

I'd also like to see other partners coming out with 2x 8-pin PCI-E power connectors for extremely overclocking (and so we don't have to see those PCI-E 6+2 having their +2 connectors dangling off for no reason inside an otherwise beautifully organized case).

4

$399 makes sense to me - direct competition for gtx770

5

Sort of. Because AMD is in a cash-crunch right now. They got a profit (finally!) after so many quarters of hemorrhaging money like there's no tomorrow, but if you look at how much they actually earned in raw profit, it was roughly the amount earned by the sale of their Singapore facility.

399$ is good, if it does come out. But AMD needs money. Although we may see a future price drop, I'd wait until I call the price at 399$ yet. I'd say after the GTX 780 Ti comes out, we might see the R9 290X and R9 290 Non-X drop in price. But not at launch.

Also, I hear rumors from Linus, Elric, Videocardz.com and other places that we'll see partners coming out with custom coolers in late November, December, or even January of next year. The issue is production.

Also, remember that the GTX 770 can't compete in terms of performance versus the R9 290 Non-X. It's me more comparable to the GTX 780, really, especially once partners come out with custom cooler designs.

Personally, once the R9 290X and 290 Non-X come out with non-reference coolers and non-reference PCBs, I think we'll see nVidia's new price chart go something like this:

GTX TITAN - 899$

GTX 780 Ti - 649$

GTX 780 Non-Ti - 549$

GTX 770 - 349$ (4GB for 399$)

GTX 760 - 219$ (4GB for 259$)

I'd also be interesting in seeing if nVidia plans to launch a GTX 760 Ti, GTX 750 Ti Boost and GTX 750 Ti Non-Boost. Those could be some game-changers for entry-level gamers.

If nVidia is planning to launch such cards, here's what I'd expect:

GTX 760 Ti = GTX 670 Overclocked and Rebranded (roughly on par with GTX 680 performance, maybe a tiny bit less, possibly using GTX 670 shorter PCB but I doubt it)

GTX 750 Ti Boost = GTX 660 Ti Overclocked and Rebranded

GTX 750 Ti Non-Boost = GTX 660 Overclocked and Rebranded

6

GTX 770 allready has competition from the HD7970/R9 280x (and its a lot cheaper than the GTX770)

(Allso nivida allready announced GTX 760TI http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-760-OEMs-Silently-Announced )

7

Yeah. Except that these OEM graphics cards usually suck, and they aren't available to be purchased online from from e-tailers (NewEgg, NCIX, Amazon) or big store retailers (BestBuy, etc).

Also, these cards aren't really big marketing for nVidia. They just gave those cards the same branding, sent them to OEMs, and said nothing about them... because if nVidia tells the general public that the GTX 760 that is inside their Gateway PC only performs as good as a GTX 660 Ti, those customers would be furious and want to return their products, and write very negative reviews online. And nVidia doesn't want to attract the public's attention to misleading marketing (because OEMs are not going to tell customers that they're getting an OEM version of the card on the box). It's a bad tactic, because it makes consumers who don't know any better feel betrayed or mislead if they try to use their PCs to run the games they bought their systems to run (BattleField 4, etc).

8

$425 Makes sense, in the middle of R9 280x (300?) and R9 290x. Im thinking the R9 290x might have a bit of a premium ($50?) for being 'the fastest' by a bit at stock. That would mean 400 would make alot of sense too as it would go $200, $300, $400, $500+(50 premium). If it's priced too much closer to the 290x than the 280x it could leave a gap in the market which is why I am speculating near the middle like that. IDK will be interesting to watch, and maybe nvidia will do some serious price cuts. 

9

I agree with you on a lower price then what is stated above.  I think if it sits between the 350 - 450 range it would be a great deal.  I also can't wait for the aftermarket group to get their hands on these.

10

There are these supposedly leaked benchmarks. I am really looking forward to seeing how this card is. If it puts quality single card 1440p performance in the sub 500 dollar range I think it will be a hit even if its also loud.

http://www.techpowerup.com/193205/radeon-r9-290-performance-figures-leaked-beats-gtx-780.html

11

If this card is less noisy/hot at the cost of a bit less performance it might be an interesting purchase! It features trueaudio, which I find is quite interesting! Although it might be a bit naive, I am truly hoping to get something similar to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FwDa7TWHHc in games.

I will just sit and wait and see what comes next. As I am stuck in NZ until February I have no problems waiting for the aftermarket ;-) If the temps are better and if there is a good non reference cooler I will accept lower performance with respect to the 290x. Although other people think temperatures are not important, they forget that they play a very important role in overclocking (which I love to do)

12

well its more the otherway arround.. Nvidia does not have anything that can compete right up with the AMD R9-280X  in price to performance... the R9-280X beats the GTX770 in most games. and its alot cheaper.

so i think the R9-290 can  realy be a bang for buck card.

13

Although that may be the case in the 300$ market, you've got to remember that nVidia plans to release the GTX 780 Ti for around 650$. And given that the leaked benchmarks show it beating the R9 290X without driver optimizations just yet, I can only speculate that it'll blow the R9 290X out of the water in terms of performance, but cost significantly more.

The R9 290X is available around 550$. The R9 290 Non-X could be a good value for 450$ already, but we've got to remember; it already has 4GB of GDDR5 in it, and 512-bit memory bandwidth. It's got more performance than a stock GTX 780, but it comes for 200$ less (hopefully). Which is really something.

I think the R9 290 Non-X will be the next HD 7950. Bang-for-buck because HD 7970 was just overpriced in terms of price/performance.

14

$650 is asking for alot this far through the 28nm fabrication process, especially with AMD so close on their heels for $450(which is pretty close to my guesstimate) and $550. TSMC is going into mass production of 20nm in February and maxwell is due for 2014, 1H I believe with volcanic islands also launching in 2014.

Considering that with the exception of HD+ or multiscreen gaming there is basically no requirement for a >300USD card to play at max settings on current games, and generally speaking such screens are very expensive (especially 4K). This in my opinion makes the >300USD market a bit of niche. And I am not sure just throwing pixels at your screen without increasing PPI(meaningfully) and at huge expense is a particularly good way to enhance ones gaming experience.

15

it's like getting, having and buying a silver medal. dont do it. lol

16

So... first you "get" an R9 290 Non-X, than you have it, and then you buy it? Not sure if BestBuy will let you walk out without buying it first. =P

17

Although I'd generally agree with you, I won't. Because I asked Seiki's Facebook and e-mail about any info regarding HDMI 2.0 4K monitors and/or TVs coming out. I got teased by them with "very soon".

Seiki has a 39 inch 4K LED-LCD TV for 699$ USD. That's roughly 3x 27" in Portrait Mode, or 5320x2560 resolution. Remember TekSyndicate's video on triple 1440p gaming? Yeah, that.

So it's about the same dimensions, except it would be one single screen. And with VESA 1.3, HDMI 2.0 and automatic DisplayPort monitor configuration with enabled 4K devices (most will be), the configuration of all of this would be transparent to the end user.

Meaning that if we see a 32" to 39" LED-LCD 4K TV/Monitor in the 699$ to 899$ range with up to 60Hz (or maybe 120Hz if we get DisplayPort 2.0), that would be epic!

You should definitely check out Seiki. If they can get a hardware-unlocked version of G-Sync (if such a thing ever comes out) that would work on both AMD and nVidia, than I'd be VERY happy.

(Oh yeah, I also got a teaser from Seiki talking about HDMI 2.0-enabled devices and possibly 32" to 35" TVs sometime soon. I expect in time for the holiday, or early 2014. Go check out their Facebook page, and website.)

18

Not sure about that. Remember, the R9 290 Non-X is a new chip. AMD wants to cash in on having to design a new chip before 20nm comes out, and while there is enough marketing hype and whatnot to warrant a 450$ pricetag. It may indeed lower it's prices in the future... but I think that since we'll see 20nm GPUs in mid-to-late Q2 2014 or even early Q3 2014 (if there are problems with mass production of 20nm parts - there usually is), we'll probably the R9 and R7 200-series of cards become obsolete quickly. This is just a temporary strategy to get investors and speculation for AMD up, because they've just been losing money like crazy.

19

www.techpowerup.com/193360/radeon-r9-290-probable-pricing-surfaces.html

The article is pretty good, but some typos here and there (like putting GTX 780 twice, when it was supposed to be only once).

Seems to back up my claims. =)

EDIT: www.techpowerup.com/193358/non-reference-design-radeon-r9-290x-to-be-available-from-late-november.html

Seems we'll be getting non-reference coolers sooner than expected. If the R9 290 Non-X is based on the same PCB design as the R9 290X (I believe it will be), we might see non-refernece coolers for both GPUs come out shortly thereafter. =)

Good news everyone (by everyone I mean PC gamers; my condolences to the console games <insert_PC_gamer_versus_console_gamer_fued_tag_here> ).

20

Granted, not a 500+ Gold Medal.