ASUS Radeon R9 295X2 pictured

by Mark Tyson on 7 April 2014, 12:00

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD), ASUSTeK (TPE:2357), Asetek

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Turkish tech site DonanimHaber published some new pictures of a boxed and unboxed ASUS Radeon R9 295X2 dual-GPU graphics card this weekend. Alongside the ASUS card and packaging pictures it is said that the price will be US$1,499. The CrossFire-on-a-single-card design pictures and packaging confirm other details leaked about the upcoming graphics card published last week by VideoCardz. The same source pegs the launch date for the AMD Radeon R9 295X2 as tomorrow.

Vesuvius

You can see one of the leaked slides from VideoCardz below. It purports to show the specifications of an AMD Radeon R9 295X2, codenamed Vesuvius. Click the picture to enlarge the comparison chart. The key statistics are basically those of an AMD Radeon R9 290X doubled, as you might expect.

To get enough power to the GPUs the card utilises 2x 8-pin connectors. The other important consideration of cooling is catered for in the reference design by ASETEK – the company which also makes ASUS ARES II coolers. If you look at the reference design and the ASUS one it is extremely similar. The only difference I can see is the metal mesh over the central fan in the reference design and the different stickers.

US$1,499

DonanimHaber reports that this powerful new graphics card will be released tomorrow, as did VideoCardz, and its sources say the price will be US$1,499. That's about double the price of a Radeon R9 290X from a variety of AiB partners. What do you get for double the outlay? In an AMD slide showing the R9 295X2's 3DMark Fire Strike performance it offers around 60 to 65 per cent better performance than a single R9 290X.

Rest assured, if and when a graphics card such as the Radeon R9 295X2 is launched, you will be able to read a full review here on HEXUS…



HEXUS Forums :: 12 Comments

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Well that's interesting.
I guess we just have to wait 'till tomorrow to find out…
So THIS is the card that the teaser vid on AMD's site was showing off. http://youtu.be/zvL3BZzr4Io

Given the reference temps and heat generated for 1 gpu the water cooler will have to do a big job.

Just strapped a Corsair H55 to my R9 290x and that keeps it to 50 for just one GPU, 2 will be closer to 85-95 I would imagine.
Considering the cores are running at 1GHz+ this is going to have to shift some serious power… I do not expect it to be a quiet card. My guess would be that it'll be more like the GTX590/6990 where custom loop water was almost required. (Then again, I expect the Titan-Z is gonna make quite a racket too with ~400W in a two slot package).
My coarse understanding of PCIE power is that a 6 pin delivers 75W while an 8 pin can do 150 and 75 can be drawn from the slot.

With two 8 pins and the bus, that is only 375W and not the full 500W the chart shows which is also less than double the 290s.

Have I fundamentally misunderstood PCIE power? Something similar happened with the 7990 but that was put down to picking the best samples.
Yep, 375W is the (theoretical/recommended) limit from 2*8-pins and the connector itself. They've probably cherry-picked samples that can run the desired clocked speed at ~20% (just a guess on the numbers) lower voltage than the stock 290X which will drastically reduce power consumption and heat production (most losses in GPUs are Ohmic resulting in a power increase proportional to the square of the voltage).
Why the table says 500W I don't know. You can get away with drawing a little more from 8-pins (on a good PSU you could probably suck 200W from each 8-pin - provided the rest of the PSU wasn't overloaded) as there's significant overhead on the cabling - well I've never felt a PCIe power cable noticeably above ambient.