With the rebranded Radeon R9 and Radeon R7 lineup launch, all eyes are now upon the AMD's Radeon R9 290X which would feature the next generation flagship Hawaii chip. The Hawaii graphics chip has several changes over the HD 7970 'Tahiti' as seen in a leaked block diagram that was posted just a few days back but removed due to AMD's NDA over the Hawaii chip.
Images are courtesy of Expreview!
Retail AMD Radeon R9 290X Pictured in Detail - Close Up PCB
Nevertheless, Expreview has some interesting pictures of the first retail Radeon R9 290X which has been pictured in full detail and each specific component has been thoroughly explained except the specifications themselves. So we are looking at a Hawaii chip that measure at 438mm2 which is larger than its predecessor and houses around 2816 stream processors. You can check out our other articles for specification overview of the Hawaii chip so we will keep this article focused on the graphics card itself.
We heard from some manufacturer's that most of the AIC partners would only have reference models of the card at launch, we did saw some early listings of non-reference models such as the ASUS Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II but i don't believe we would get them at launch which itself is a mystery. The reference design is the same thing we saw at the Volcanic Islands launch event held in Hawaii. AMD has used their legacy Red and Black theme and a simple manufacturer logo is featured on top of the blower color which in this case is from HIS Digital.
The card features a long cooler shroud that features a blower fan which pushes air towards the internal heatsink equipped with aluminum fins. The aluminum fin heatsink block is featured on top of a large copper vapor heatsink block. Display outputs include Dual-Link DVI, HDMI and a display port while power is provided through an 8+6 Pin connector.
The PCB features a 5+1+1 phase (5 Phase Core/ 1 Phase Memory/ 1 Phase PLL) VRM design featuring the Copper MOSFETs, CPL chokes and the IR 3567B PWM chip. The memory modules featured as SK Hynix built labeled with the H5GQ2H24AFR-R0C part with a maximum data rate of 6 Gbps. There are 6 modules in total which represent a 512-bit/4 GB GDDR5 memory.
There's more information about the Radeon R9 290X which is yet to be revealed along with the much anticipated performance numbers. Stay tuned for more information over this week.
| 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 | 2668 |
| 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 Pin | 8+6 Pin | 8+6 Pin |
| PCB VRM | 5+1+1 | 5+1+1 | 6+2 | 6+2 |
| Die Size | ~438mm2 | 438mm2 | 551mm2 | 551mm2 |
| Launch Date | October 2013 | October 2013 | 23rd June 2013 | 21st February 2013 |
| Launch Price | $649 | $499 | $649 | $999 |
