AMD Radeon R9 390X will not hit the market till 2015 – rumour

Although it was expected that Advanced Micro Devices would launch its new single-GPU flagship graphics solution already this year, a new market rumour suggests that the forthcoming Radeon R9 390X graphics card is only due in 2015.

In summer it transpired that AMD had taped out (the point at which a customer sends photomask of a chip to the manufacturer) two graphics processors – a 350mm² chip and a 500mm² chip – that would be manufactured using 28nm HPM [high-performance mobile] process technology at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Since then AMD has released its Radeon R9 285 graphics cards based on the code-named Tonga GPU (which has ~350mm² die size). However, nothing is clear about the bigger graphics processing unit.

Earlier this month a web-site published a picture of a hybrid liquid cooling system presumably designed for AMD’s new high-end single-chip graphics solution, which is likely to be called AMD Radeon R9 390X.

Typically images of new graphics boards emerge no more than two or three months ahead of a new product launch, when partners of AMD or Nvidia receive samples of the cards. Images of cooling systems can transpire a lot earlier. It should be noted that there are no schedules for unofficial leaks and anything can be published at almost any time.

DigiTimes web-site reports that AMD’s Radeon R9 390X will not emerge on the market until the first half of 2015, a bad news for AMD. If the graphics board is more than three months away, it explains why an unknown partner of AMD could only picture a prototype of its cooling system.

It is expected that AMD’s new flagship graphics processor is based on the GCN 1.2 architecture and is considerably faster than the current-generation Radeon R9 290X “Hawaii” offering. Unfortunately, even the code-name of the new GPU is unclear. Different sources indicate that the new chip is called either “Maui”, “Fiji” or “Iceland.”

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

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KitGuru Says: Keeping in mind that virtually all GPU launches are preceded by loads of leaks and considering the fact that so far we have seen only a new cooling system for an unknown AMD Radeon graphics card, it is unlikely that the Radeon R9 390X is around the corner. Still, AMD could formally launch its new high-end GPU in calendar 2014 and ramp it in calendar 2015.

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