AMD Launches Retail Radeon 300 Series: A Prelude To Fury
by Ryan Smith on June 18, 2015 10:35 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- Radeon 300
Throughout the last couple of months AMD has been in the process of carefully and deliberately rolling out their latest generation of video cards. In a multi-staged process we have seen AMD engage in a what is best described as a drawn-out teaser and an early technical briefing, announcing their intention to roll out a new high-end video card this quarter, further teasing the public with pictures of the card, and then in the middle of all of that giving the technical press an in-depth briefing on AMD’s key next-generation memory technology, High Bandwidth Memory. While AMD did their best to make sure the details of the cards were kept under wraps – with varying results – AMD definitely wanted to make sure the world would know that their card was coming.
Catching up to the present, earlier this week AMD held their 2015 GPU product showcase, dubbed “The New Era of PC Gaming.” As the latest stage in AMD’s master plan, AMD held a public event in Los Angeles similar to their 2014 GPU product showcase in Hawaii, where the company announced their product lineup ahead of the full launch of the products in question. In the presentation we learned some (but not all) of the details surrounding AMD’s Radeon 300 series, including the numbered products from 360 to 390, and of course the company’s new high-end flagship video card, the Radeon R9 Fury X.
All told the showcase itself was something of a teaser itself – we got prices, but not complete specifications – but we also received confirmation of AMD’s rollout plans. The next stage, coinciding with today’s article, is the formal launch of the numbered members of the Radeon 300 series, which are product refreshes based on existing AMD GPUs, similar to what we saw with the 200 series in 2013. Meanwhile today is also the greater unveiling (but not the launch) of the Fury series, with AMD allowing us to share more details about the new card and its specifications. Following today’s announcements and launches, the Radeon R9 Fury X will be launching in just under a week from now, on June 24th, and then after that the R9 Fury (vanilla) will be launching on July 14th.
| AMD R9 300 Series Specification Comparison | ||||||
| AMD Radeon R9 Fury X | AMD Radeon R9 Fury | AMD Radeon R9 390X | AMD Radeon R9 390 | |||
| Stream Processors | 4096 | (Fewer) | 2816 | 2560 | ||
| Texture Units | 256 | (How much) | 176 | 160 | ||
| ROPs | 64 | (Depnds) | 64 | 64 | ||
| Boost Clock | 1050MHz | (On Yields) | 1050MHz | 1000MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 1Gbps HBM | (Memory Too) | 5Gbps GDDR5 | 5Gbps GDDR5 | ||
| Memory Bus Width | 4096-bit | 4096-bit | 512-bit | 512-bit | ||
| VRAM | 4GB | 4GB | 8GB | 8GB | ||
| FP64 | 1/16 | 1/16 | 1/8 | 1/8 | ||
| TrueAudio | Y | Y | Y | Y | ||
| Transistor Count | N/A | N/A | 6.2B | 6.2B | ||
| Typical Board Power | 275W | (High) | 275W | 275W | ||
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm | ||
| Architecture | GCN 1.2 | GCN 1.2 | GCN 1.1 | GCN 1.1 | ||
| GPU | Fiji | Fiji | Hawaii | Hawaii | ||
| Launch Date | 06/24/15 | 07/14/15 | 06/18/15 | 06/18/15 | ||
| Launch Price | $649 | $549 | $429 | $329 | ||
Overall AMD is launching an almost top-to-bottom refresh of its product lineup overnight. Between now and July 14th the company and its partners will introduce cards from $109 to $649, and while there are a few gaps that AMD is almost certainly purposely leaving in place to give them something to announce later this year, overall we’re seeing more or less AMD’s entire hand for 2015 and early 2016 in one go.
As for the subjects at hand today, there are really two stories to talk about. The first is of course the Radeon R9 Fury series, the products that will house AMD’s newest flagship GPU, Fiji. While I won’t butter up Fiji from an architectural standpoint at this time, what Fiji does bring to the table are two very big changes for AMD. The first of these is of course high bandwidth memory, which not only gives AMD more VRAM bandwidth than ever before, but it outright changes how GPUs video cards are constructed. The second big change is that Fiji is just very big. At 596mm2 AMD went right to the reticle limit, putting AMD squarely into the big GPU race.
But before Fury comes the rest of the 300 series. We'll take a look at Fury in due time - while we've been briefed on the subject and have been authorized to discuss it, we want to hold back for when we have the hardware in hand - so our focus for today will be on what's launching today, and that's the Radeon 300 series.
Being released today are five new cards from AMD’s partners, which will form the backbone of the Radeon 300 series from $109 to $429. To our regular readers these parts will be familiar – and to some, perhaps more familiar than they’d like – while for AMD the 300 series represents their 3rd generation of retail 28nm products.
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Cailin - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Really want an anandtech review on the 390 and 390x. There seems to be some great numbers coming from other sites that already have the reviews up. Very surprising, given they are rebrands with more memory and adjusted clocks. I don't know if it was just driver work since I last saw 290x numbers or what?Anyway what I really want to know is if the 290/290x actually does perform the same as the 390 series (adjusted for clockspeed) So please retest a 290x if you have one handy, not a crappy reference one obviously. If the 290(x) matches the current numbers I am seeing I will be picking one up second hand/ fire sale for sure. I really thought there was more of a gap between gtx980 and the hawaii cards but perhaps I was wrong.
Cailin - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
NM this was already done at Hardocp.com with their MSI 390x review. At the same clockspeed the rebrand 390x is the same speed as the 290x. Think I'll be picking up a cheap 290 or 2Black Obsidian - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Check out a few different reviews. Guru3D show the 390X beating the 290X by up to 15% at higher resolutions, and generally matching or slightly faster than the GTX980.The 390X is certainly no revelation in gaming, but at $50 less than the 980 and equal to better performance, maybe it and Fury will at least help edge nVidia's pricing down out of "we've got a monopoly and we know it" territory.
chizow - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Did you bother to read what he wrote? Clock for clock, the chips are identical = rebrand. The 290X scores are either reference, custom cooled, or different stock clocks which is no surprise given 290X has gone over so many permutations over the years. Reality is, the last 8GB 290X that hit the market is really not much different than the 390X except for a different BIOS, cooler shroud and box. Board shots of the XFX have already confirmed this reality.Nagorak - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
390x clearly has faster memory, so you can't just overclock the 290x to equal it. 290x might still be a better buy, but they're not entirely identical cards.chizow - Friday, June 19, 2015 - link
They're the same ICs as the 8GB 290X, so yes, you can just over or underclock them. 290X has been on market for nearly 2 years, of course it has gone over gradual improvements in yield for both the GPU and the memory, so if you compare launch reference throttling 290X to 390X you're going to see a big difference. But if you compare an 8GB 290X that was launched last year, you're going to see minimal difference.http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/06/18/msi_r9_3...
Rebrands. Hopefully AT does a similar clock for clock apples to apples comparison, but from the tone of Ryan's intro and his reluctance to call them rebrands, I highly doubt he wants to go in this direction. :)
silverblue - Friday, June 19, 2015 - link
Aren't there one or two other changes within Hawaii Refresh? I admit that rebrands leave a nasty taste, but if there are tweaks to reduce power and add one or two functions, it's not as bad as it could've been.I say "if", of course.
chizow - Friday, June 19, 2015 - link
Well, Ryan is claiming other tweaks, I've read improved tesselation and hints of VSR but other sites have shown these are just AMD working on their drivers as they should've been all along. We will see if there is validity to the actual silicon tweaks or if Ryan is just going by the script to make sure he gets a Fury X to review.der - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
yaaaaaaaaaaa!jjj - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link
Isn't the die 596mm not 594?Seen a slide somewhere with 596 for the die and 1011mm2 the interposer.