The final specifications for the AMD's next generation flagship Radeon R9 290X and Radeon R9 290 Hawaii GPU have been confirmed by GDM.or.jp. The specifications which we have been reporting since a while are legit and the Hawaii XT core indeed features 2816 Stream processors.
AMD Radeon R9 290X and Radeon R9 290 Specifications Confirmed
There are two cards based on the Hawaii GPU architecture, the AMD Radeon R9 290X which features the Hawaii XT core and the AMD Radeon R9 290 which would launch later featuring the Hawaii Pro core.
The Radeon R9 290X 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. The memory is clocked at an effective clock speed of 5 GHz. the GPU has a compute performance of 5.6 TFlops.
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. The card uses the latest AMD CrossFireX technology allowing for upto Quad-Way GPU functionality without the need to equip a CrossFire cable since the signals are being sent via the PCIe bus interface.
The Radeon R9 290 on the other hand features the Hawaii Pro chip with 2560 Stream processors and 40 ROPS. the card has a max clock speed of 947 MHz and has a compute performance of 4.9 TFlops. Power to the card is provided through a 6+8 Pin configuration.
AMD mentions that the new CrossFire technology for AMD Radeon R9 290X and Radeon R9n 290 is designed for AMD Eyefinity and UltraHD (4K) resolution setups. The new technology, as mentioned before allows for direct access between GPU display pipelines over PCI-Express hence no external connectors are required. The technology is fully compatible with AMD’s Catalyst frame pacing technologies which help reduce frame pacing issues faced with Multi-GPU setups which have been a massive problem with the Radeon 7000 series. Lastly, the slide mentions that users would face no performance penalty by with Sideport versus traditional used external bridges for CrossFireX.
| AMD Radeon R9 290X | AMD Radeon R9 290 | GeForce GTX 780 | GeForce GTX Titan | |
| GPU Codename | Hawaii | Hawaii | GK110 | GK110 |
| GPU Process | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm |
| Stream Processors | 2816 | 2560 | 2304/192/48 | 2668/224/48 |
| Base Clock | 800 MHz | 900 MHz | 863 MHz | 837 MHz |
| Turbo Clock | 1000 MHz + | 947 MHz | 902 MHz | 876 MHz |
| VRAM | 4 GB | 4 GB | 3 GB | 6 GB |
| Memory Bus | 512-Bit | 512-Bit | 384-Bit | 384 Bit |
| Memory Clock | 5 GHz (effective) | 5 GHz (effective) |
6 GHz (effective) | 6 GHz (effective) |
| Power Configuration | 8+6 Pin | 8+6 or 6+6 Pin | 8+6 Pin | 8+6 Pin |
| PCB VRM | 5+1+1 | 5+1+1 | 6+2 | 6+2 |
| Die Size | ~424mm2 | ~424mm2 | 551mm2 | 551mm2 |
| Launch Date | October 2013 | Q4 2013 | 23rd June May 2013 | 21st February 2013 |
| Launch Price | $649-599 | $499-449 | $649 | $999 |
Both GPUs would feature support for DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.3 and the latest Mantle API that would debut in Battlefield 4 in December 2013 and later get featured in more games. Expect retail availability of the Radeon R9 290X and Radeon R9 290 on 15th October 2013. The Radeon R9 290X Battlefiield 4 bundle is currently available through several retailers including Newegg and has been listed for a price of $729.99 US.
AMD Radeon R9 290X:
AMD Radeon R9 290:
