AMD officially launched Radeon R9 290X graphics card. Featuring brand new fully unlocked 28 nm Hawaii graphics processing unit, R9 290X comes out as the new fastest single GPU graphics card.
Ultra high class R9 290X boasts 2816 stream processors, 176 TMUs (texture mounting units), 64 ROPs and 4 GB GDDR5 graphics memory connected to GPU through 512-bit memory bus. GPU runs at 1 GHz clock while memory is set at 1250 MHz (5 GHz effective) clock. Card supports a full set of new features, including Mantle, DirectX 11.2 and OpenGL APIs, TrueAudio, PureAudio, Gaming Evolved App, PowerTune, ZeroCore.
Cards from AMD's add-in board partners, including ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, PowerColor, VTX3D, Club3D, Sapphire, Diamond, VisionTek, XFX, HIS, can already be found in stores. Unfortunately, all R9 290X models come with the same reference design featuring vapor chamber aluminum heat sink with blower fan and black/red shroud. It's unknown whether there will be custom design R9 290X later down the road, but a special edition, such as ASUS Matrix or MSI Lightning is likely to come out at some point.
Now the fun part. It's been speculated R9 290X would be priced between $650 and $750, however it's final price is set at just $550. That said, Radeon R9 290X offers performance higher than that of GeForce GTX TITAN for $450 lower price. On the bad side, R9 290X is a lot noisier and draws more power. But can't argue at such relatively low price point.
| R9 290X | R9 280X | R9 270X | |
| GPU Architecture | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm |
| API Support | DirectX® 11.2, Mantle, OpenGL 4.3 | DirectX® 11.2, Mantle, OpenGL 4.3 | DirectX® 11.2, Mantle, OpenGL 4.3 |
| PCE Express® Version | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 |
| AMD PowerTune Technology | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 4K Resolution Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| DDMA Audio | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| HDMI (With 4K, Stereo 3D, Deep Color & x.v.Color™) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| TrueAudio Technology | Yes | No | No |
| AMD Eyefinity Technology (Maximum displays) | 3 with DVI/HDMI, 4 using DisplayPort, 6 with an MST hub | 3 with DVI/HDMI, 4 using DisplayPort, 6 with an MST hub | 3 with DVI/HDMI, 4 using DisplayPort, 6 with an MST hub |
| Video Codec Engine (VCE) (with H.264, MPEG-4 ASP, MPEG-2, VC-1 & Blu-ray 3D) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| GPU Clock Speed | Up to 1GHz | Up to 1GHz | Up to 1.05GHz |
| Memory Bandwidth | Up to 320 GB/s | Up to 288 GB/s | Up to 104 GB/s |
| Memory Amount | Up to 4GB GDDR5 | Up to 3GB GDDR5 | Up to 4GB GDDR5 |
| Stream Processing Units | Up to 2816 | Up to 2048 | Up to 1280 |
| Required Power Supply Connectors | 1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin | 1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin | 2 x 6-pin |
| AMD CrossFire® Support (Maximum number of GPUs and CrossFire Bridge Interconnect required) | 4, no | 4, yes | 2, yes |
| Form Factor | Full height, dual slot | Full height, dual slot | Full height, dual slot |
