Greeting PowerColor Radeon R9 290X New-Generation Graphics Cards

PowerColor has officially introduced a pair of high-efficiency graphics cards developed on the new-generation Radeon R9 290X series adapters. Codenamed PowerColor Radeon R9 290X, both new-comers support the latest graphics technologies, i.e. DirectX 11.2 and OpenGL 4.2. The models feature a totally identical design, still there is one differentiation: one of the models is equipped with a key to Battlefield 4 game. Such ‘bonus’ has resulted in a bit heightened price of $580, if compared with the standard model that costs $550.

Both cards are based on AMD Hawaii XT chip. It has been dynamically overclocked by PowerColor to 1030 MHz, whereas the nominal clock frequency remained the same – 800 MHz. In order to enhance the performance, the GPU has been supplemented with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory with 512-bit interface that runs at 5000 MHz.

To proceed with the specifications, both graphics adapters accommodate four rear video ports (HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI-I, and DVI-D). Similar to the reference models, cards from PowerColor are rather demanding as for the PSU power; the manufacturer recommends employing them with PSUs of at least 600 W power. Cooling system has not been changed in this case and is represented by standard turbine-type coolers. Some other specifications are listed below:

— architecture: GCN 2.0, 28 nm technological process;
— GPU: AMD Hawaii XT – 2816 stream processors, 176 TMUs, 64 ROPs;
— GPU clock frequency: 800 MHz – nominal, 1030 MHz – overclocked;
— memory: GDDR5, capacity – 4 GB, clock frequencies – 1250/5000 MHz nominal/efficient;
— internal interface: PCIe 3.0 x16;
— PCI power sockets: 2 x 8-contact;
— supported technologies: DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.2, DirectCompute 11, Shader Model 5.0, OpenCL 1.2, and AMD HD3D/Eyefinity/CrossFire/PowerPlay/PowerTune/ZeroCore.