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Advanced Micro Devices plans to re-launch AMD Radeon R9 290X graphics cards with 8GB of memory. Earlier this year such graphics boards were available exclusively from Sapphire Technologies, but for the holiday season AMD intends to allow three partners to offer R9 290X graphics boards with 8GB of GDDR5 on-board.
In a bid to better compete against Nvidia Corp.’s GeForce GTX 980 as well as GeForce GTX Titan graphics cards, AMD plans to allow Club3D, PowerColor and Sapphire to release exclusive 8GB versions of graphics cards based on the Radeon R9 290X graphics processing units, reports SweClockers.
The AMD Radeon R9 290X graphics cards with 8GB of GDDR5 memory are projected to feature custom cooling solutions and higher clock-rates compared to regular graphics boards powered by the fully-fledged version of the Hawaii graphics chip with 2816 stream processors, 176 texture units, 64 raster operations pipelines and 512-bit memory bus.
The exclusive Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Vapor-X OC 8192MB graphics card that was made available in limited quantities earlier this year came with slightly increased clock-rates: the GPU was clocked at 1060MHz (up from 1000MHz), whereas 8GB of memory operated at 5600MHz effective frequency (up from 5000MHz on default graphics cards). It is logical to expect similar slight overclock from the upcoming Radeon R9 290X 8GB graphics cards as well.
While 8GB of GDDR5 memory sounds impressive, not everyone needs a frame-buffer that large at present. For the vast majority of use cases, 4GB GDDR5 should be enough for fine frame-rates. 8GB will provide a significant advantage to those, who play in 4K resolution (3840*2160) and/or with very high-quality antialiasing settings, but in order to get high performance in ultra-high-definition, one will need two graphics cards…
The new breed of Radeon R9 290X graphics adapters with 8GB of GDDR5 memory on-board will be released on the 6th of November, 2014. AMD wants to ensure that the new graphics boards are affordable enough to compete against GeForce GTX 980, therefore, do not expect the R9 290X 8GB versions to cost significantly more than regular models.
The fact that AMD allowed two of its key partners – Tul Corp. (which controls PowerColor and supplier graphics cards to Club3D) and Sapphire Technology – to make exclusive Radeon R9 290X 8GB graphics cards means that the company has no plans to release any new flagship offerings this calendar year.
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KitGuru Says: While it is nice to see that AMD actually wants to compete against the GeForce GTX 980 using something else than price-cuts or promotions, exclusive graphics cards with no obvious performance advantages are not exactly something that can capture a significant share of the market (due to limited availability). Therefore, while some gamers might prefer Radeon R9 290X 8GB to GeForce GTX 980 4GB, it is unlikely that the majority of gamers will make the same choice.
It’s doesn’t matter what you get, because of you didn’t hear about the future of PC Gaming been locked at 30fps then now you have. Why bother when the future PC Games not all of them will be locked at 30fps in favor of the stupid consoles. You could play at 5K and you’ll still get 30fps so again why bother, as I already removed some future PC Games from the list to Future PS3 games because of the locked frames.
I didn’t purchased a $500 dollar graphics card to be playing at 30fps, sorry if you favor the stupid consoles more then the PC, then the future of gaming on the PC is going to change, well at least for me.
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I’ve heard that only consoles aim for 30fps… PC games aim for 60fps… That’s why FreeSync and GSync came out… So the GPU can set the refresh… Not the games…
no the games will not be locked to 30FPS most of the games will have a variable frame rate
Wooot??? Might wanna rethink that… free sync and gsync sinchronize the screen framerate to the one of the gpu. Fps lockin is something only the games can lock in for the moment. Anyway if your minimum fps is 30 and you have no microstutter it will be a perfectly smooth playable experience. Not saying that fps lockin should happen… just that it might make no difference
No, I might not.. The reason PC games don’t have locked frame rates is because of variable resolution… If a person turns down features and resolution and doesn’t get an increase in FPS, they will make life miserable for someone…
Just like if a person buys a second GPU and doesn’t get an increase, it would be a bad thing for game devs AND GPU makers…
30fps minimum avg and maximum with 0 microstutter would be perfectly smootly playable. With the new hardware fps is becomming an increasingly nonissue because the stutter is gone. However i don’t see the point in hardcaping the fps unless you’re gaming mobile or laptop or such. Or you should be able to chose fps capping.
And i thought you buy additional hardware to play demanding games in 4k or on multiple screens… well if you buy it for fps… have at it.
My point is that very few gamers even see the difference once the game has stutterfree 30 fps +… like <0.1% or so… it is not ok to hardcap i know but it should not impact your gaming experience… since you bought it for exactly that now didn't you?
Evil within is locked wt 30fps and i hear assasins creed unity is
You are a retard. There’s a big difference
Not as of today since bethesda released a patch to fix that 30fps lock.
Since Kitguru is much like ign. IE always late to report news I’ll do there jobs ( yea useless Euro twats! ) Nvidia will also be releasing a GTX 980 with 8gb Vram in November.
Not sure if you can 2-3 pc games the future, but just saying, if they lock it, we will unlock it – modding community.
Apart from that 30 fps is the minimum, not the maximum, it is just so that those with low end gear will get still decent performance while others can go higher if they want.
If you want to achieve something, nothing is impossible.