Radeon R9-290X Preordering Begins Today
by Ian Cutress on October 3, 2013 11:05 AM EST
Hot on the heels of AMD’s 2014 GPU Product Showcase, along with details of the upcoming 2x0 AMD GPUs being launched, AMD was coy about the headline product, the Hawaii based R9-290X. Aside from over six billion transistors, having 4GB of memory and quoting a bandwidth of over 300 GB/sec, the only other salient piece of information released was that today is the pre-order date. To that extent we have observed the following with online e-tailers:
OverclockersUK is offering a pre-order deposit of £99 which will guarantee a card at launch. Final pricing is not yet announced, there will be more to pay at a later date when pricing is confirmed. This is the BF4 Edition, and OCUK have several hundred units up for grabs with an ETA of 31/10/13 (31st October in UK speak), and OCUK will have BF4 editions of Sapphire, HIS, ASUS, GIGABYTE and MSI cards, though at the minute there is no guarantee which one you may receive. Middle-to-end of October customers will be contacted via email at which point they can call to select the brand pay the additional money. If you are unhappy with the launch pricing or have changed your mind, deposits will be refunded.
Swedish etailer Webhallen has the ASUS BF4 Premium bundle up for 9999kr (SEK), which includes Swedish taxes. Certain websites have done the conversion direct and got a ludicrously high $1575 equivalent, but without Sweden’s 25% tax rate this comes to 8000kr, or $1262. This card was up at 7299kr ($920 USD without tax), making it still rather expensive.
TechPowerUp caught Newegg listing up both the MSI and Sapphire branded reference cards (now the XFX too), and although the pricing is listed as ‘coming soon’, a quick dig around the HTML source code lists the card at $730 excluding taxes. We are waiting the final pricing to be fully listed and will update with details, although it is suggested that this is for the full BF4 Premium edition – the regular edition may be cheaper.
For Sweden, the retailer netonnet.se is currently listing the card for 9999kr, the same as Webhallen. Interestingly enough we also get some specifications: 512-bit GDDR5, 111mm x 277mm x 48mm dimensions and a 500W PSU recommended minimum.
The Canadian branch of Newegg has the MSI, Sapphire and XFX cards all listed at CAD$750 on their mobile site, but not on the website proper.
We will update this post as more retailers initialise their pre-orders. The latest details on pre-orders seem to be coming from the @AMDRadeon twitter feed.
| R9-290X Pre-Orders | ||
| Retailer | Edition | Price / ETA |
|
OverclockersUK (UK) |
BF4 Edition Preorder (Sapphire, HIS, ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI) |
£99 deposit ETA 31st Oct 2013 |
|
Webhallen + NetonNet.se (Sweden) |
ASUS BF4 Edition |
9999kr ($1262 excl. tax) |
|
Newegg (US) |
MSI (XFX and Sapphire also listed) |
$730 (from HTML, still unlisted) |
|
Newegg (CA) |
MSI, XFX and Sapphire |
CAD$750 (from mobile site) |
There are set to be two different versions of the R9-290X available for preorder – the standard edition which contains just the card as well as the Never Settle bundle, and the BF4 Edition which has a BF4 Premium key. All arrows point to BF4 standard edition being part of the Never Settle bundle in due course, although this is yet to be confirmed.
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tipoo - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
So ~700 dollars, realistically once things settle. I sense a Titan price drop incoming, if this really does trounce it like they're saying. I'd be hesitant about a preorder though until it's reviewed, of course, even if I did have that much money to drop on a video card when things at a third the price run most current games fine :)Da W - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
Specs have leaked too.GPU Codename – Hawaii
GPU Process – 28nmlarge
Stream Processors – 2816
TMUs – 176
ROPs – 44
Base Clock – 800 MHz
Turbo Clock – 1000 MHz
VRAM – 4GB GDDR5
Memory Bus – 512-Bit
Memory Clock – 1250 MHz (5GHz Effective)
Memory Bandwidth – 320 GBps
Power Configuration – 8+6 Pin
PCB VRM – 5+1+1
Die Size – 424mm2
Transistors – 6 billion
3D Technology – DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.3 and Mantle
Audio Technology – AMD TrueAudio
Gonna wait until my basement is finished and i have a dedicated power ciruit for my computer + eyefinity setup. Ain't gonna plug it with my microwave that's for sure!
Pontius - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
Cool specs, but for me they are missing the most important thing.The only thing I'm interested in at the moment is OpenCL computing. For anyone who has worked with it, you'll know that the single most important thing is not computing power, but memory bandwidth. Even with a bigger memory bus, accessing main video memory is very slow. The only way to mitigate this is with the on-chip local memory cache. The amount of such has been very small in nVidia cards and even smaller in AMD cards. This has to be remedied at some point for GPU computing to really take off and I was hoping these new cards would provide more local memory. Any info on that would be great. Thanks.
Flunk - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
The question really is, is this that much faster than the Radeon 7970? I've seen 7970s going as low at $260, so the real question is if this new card is much faster than 2x 7970s and $230 in pocket money.Homeles - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
How is that "the real question?" AMD would have to essentially break the laws of physics in order to triple the performance of their previous flagship card on the same manufacturing process.I don't know why so many people fail to grasp the fact that premium products sell for premium prices. High end products invariably offer less for your dollar than mainstream products, and that goes for nearly every industry out there, too.
The real question is why you're asking that question.
Look at the GTX 780. Its MSRP is $650. This thing is faster than the 780. Therefore, it makes sense for it to cost more.
If you're concerned at how much something costs, you shouldn't even be looking at the 290X. This is not a bang-for-your-buck card -- flagship cards *never* are.
azixtgo - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Lots of problems with your comment I think.1. this is the only new thing from amd. Some people won't want to buy their other cards that are 2 years old. Especially with all the changes being made with new consoles coming out etc.
2. This r9 290x is high end only because of where the two companies are. I am really suspecting they are price-fixing or staggering their releases. AMD has had these cards out for TWO years and they are still relevant. Since when has it been that way? It may be a side effect of the manufacturing processes that are available. AMD is definitely going south right now as far as their pricing goes. They are back to ATI days. They are back to the $600, $700 single card ways and not in a good way.
A point related to the above... 3) is that this R9 290x is what would have been a HD9870 if they hadn't switched up their strategy between the 5000 and 6000 series. Their highend before that used to be dual GPU cards. Then they made the 6970 which was actually what a 6870 would have been. The 6870 ended up as what a 6770 would have been etc... So this 7970 successor is actually no different from an *8** card. Well, maybe 10% more.
Being at the limit or near to it on 28nm maybe means they deserve some leeway, but still. The AMD we could expect to offer value is gone, for now at least.
Sabresiberian - Saturday, October 5, 2013 - link
How do you know it's faster than the GTX 780?Da W - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
I would myself go for Dual 7870 or Dual 7950 for 200$ Can each. Microsuttering made me wait for R290X. I know my games will just work in eyefinity.inighthawki - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
People will pay a lot of money to have the performance in a single card. Those that either dislike SLI/Crossfire setups but still want the perf, or maybe they are planning on getting 2x 290X. This is the way manufacturers have sold every product since the beginning of time. The higher end the device, the larger the profit margins are.just4U - Saturday, October 5, 2013 - link
They appear to be hovering in the 330+ range for the ghz edition. Where have you seen them for 260? I've yet to see one listed at that price.