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AMD to debut R9 300 series at Computex?

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For whatever reason, AMD’s been pretty mum about its upcoming R9 300 series of cards. They’ve revealed that their newest, high-end, ultra-enthusiast card had been powering all sorts of VR demos at GDC, but have been disquietingly tight-lipped about the series as a whole. From earlier reports, we’ve been led to believe that the majority of the new cards in the 300 series are just rebranded ones from the 200 series. New reports say that’s changed.

According to Kitguru, citing sources of an anonymous, inside nature, AMD had planned to rebrand a number of their older cards and repurpose them for their 300 series. This is a regular occurrence in the industry, and is great for clearing an overstock of chips from channels, repurposing them, with a few extra features for a new line of cards. Essentially, AMD would be making the R9 290X the new R9 380X and the R9 285 the new R9 370, and so on and so forth.

Here’s what the rumours suggested:

GPU Possible Specs Launch Date
AMD Radeon R9 395X2 Bermuda (Fiji x2) GCN 1.3; 8192 (?) Cores; 8192-bit 8GB HBM Q4 2015
AMD Radeon R9 390X Fiji XT GCN 1.3; 4096 (?) Cores; 4096-bit 4GB HBM Q2 2015
AMD Radeon R9 390 Fiji PRO GCN 1.3; 3840 (?) Cores; 4096-bit 4GB HBM Q2 2015
AMD Radeon R9 385X Fiji CE (?) GCN 1.3; 3328 (?) Cores; 2048-bit 2GB HBM (?)
AMD Radeon R9 380X Grenada XTX (Hawaii) GCN 1.1; 2816 Cores; 512-bit 4GB GDDR5 Q2 2015
AMD Radeon R9 380 Grenada PRO (Hawaii) GCN 1.1; 2560 Cores; 512-bit 4GB GDDR5 Q2 2015
AMD Radeon R9 370X Tonga XT GCN 1.2; 2048 Cores; 384-bit 3GB GDDR5 Q2 2015
AMD Radeon R9 370 Tonga PRO GCN 1.2; 1792 Cores; 256-bit 2GB GDDR5 Q2 2015
AMD Radeon R9 360X Trinidad GCN 1.3; (?) Cores; 256-bit 2GB GDDR5 Q1 2015
AMD Radeon R9 360 Trinidad GCN 1.3; (?) Cores; 256-bit 2GB GDDR5 Q1 2015

AMD’s changed its mind, apparently – and every single cards in the new 300 series will be a new one. Higher ups at AMD have apparently demanded that the company launch with a full new solution, rather than a brand new high end card and a re-appropriated middle end.

It could mean we’ll see the new cards even later than anticipated – though the same report says we’ll see the new GPU’s announced at Computex in June. I feel that AMD’s dropped the ball a little. They could have really capitalised on Nvidia’s GTX 970 memory flub beyond their few pot-shots, by announcing some sort of competition to NVidia’s Maxwell-powered beasts, but they’ve instead remained quiet.

As a result, AMD’s marketshare is dropping even lower – and it’s something AMD’s aware of, with hopes that its new products for 2015 will bring more gamers back to Team Red.

“We are confident that as we get into the second half of 2015 with the launch of that [new graphics] product, we will gain back the market share which is low from my standpoint and historically,” said Devinder Kumar, chief financial officer of AMD at the Morgan Stanley Technology, media and telecom conference. “We need to be significantly higher than where we are right now.”

Yes. Yes you do.

Are you still waiting for AMD to play its hand, or have you run out of patience and gone for NVidia’s Maxwell cards?

Last Updated: March 9, 2015

25 Comments

  1. Pariah

    March 9, 2015 at 11:03

    • The Immortal LS

      March 14, 2015 at 22:39

      Amd can’t offered to wait while nvidia eats away at the market. I want radeon to come out sooner than later, otherwise I probably would have to go for the 970

      Reply

  2. Blood Emperor Trevor

    March 9, 2015 at 11:04

    I’ll wait, seeing as I plan for my upgrades to last for years.

    Reply

    • GeneralKarim

      March 15, 2015 at 12:22

      Well a 970/980 will do just that. Waiting till June prolly wont do you any good.

      Reply

  3. Wait&See

    March 9, 2015 at 11:37

    AMD needed to release their new cards before May 19th. Announcing new cards only on June 1st, they better release their cards before June 2nd. Lots of PC gamers will be upgrading before June 2nd. Seems AMD is planning for year end sales.

    Well I am a, wait and see, kind of person. So AMD better have released new cards after I have waited and saw with those 2 big games of the year.

    Reply

  4. Ranting Raptor

    March 9, 2015 at 12:31

    If I was AMD I’d have launched some solid specs on the back of the nvidia mess up. If the cards are going to be good it would have given people a reason to wait and see. But this is just waiting too long. Perhaps they are waiting to reveal so that they can capatalise on end of year sales? Maybe hoping to get the people upgrading for all the high end November release games?

    Although I don’t know how many people wait that long.

    Reply

  5. Glenn615

    March 9, 2015 at 13:18

    AMD SHOULD have capitalized on the 970 fiasco… it was perfect timing .What a shame !
    I seriously doubt gamers will have the cash in June for a $600+ GPU. 90% of pc gamers use Tax season to upgrade their pc’s . That’s just too far off to wait for an upgrade. Besides.. there are some killer pc titles coming out wayyy before then .. -Looks like the Green Team will have a better Q2 as far as profits go.

    Reply

    • 200380051

      March 9, 2015 at 22:46

      Well they did slash 100$ off the 290/X cards when that happened, and their Marketing team build quick campains around this too. If that isn’t capitalizing, i wonder what that means for you.

      Reply

      • Glenn615

        March 10, 2015 at 04:53

        I call that a late excuse and a weak attempt at best. You could already buy some versions of the 290x at that price ..months before the 970 fiasco began. I paid 280.00 each for both my direct cu 290’s a month before AMD gave some discounts on select manufacturers…sorry but that’s not good marketing from my stand l point.. I guess there’s a reason why amd is burning through executives like there’s no tomorrow. They’re clueless on what the market needs are.

        Reply

    • Silky

      March 10, 2015 at 00:02

      nail on the head with that statement

      Reply

    • Silky

      March 10, 2015 at 00:02

      nail on the head with that statement

      Reply

    • Silky

      March 10, 2015 at 00:02

      nail on the head with that statement

      Reply

  6. Judge_Chip

    March 9, 2015 at 17:26

    Nvidia has a massive performance per watt advantage with Maxwell and even 970 memory flub Its I still recomend it over any watt wasting AMD GPU, Dx12 will stack memory which pretty much negates its flub. The GTX980 is king of the GPU hill and Nvidia 9XX series owns the mobile market which doesn’t tolerate watt wasting GPUs.

    “The ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980 Platinum has surely laid the smack down on
    the AMD Radeon R9 290X. We were using a very high factory overclocked
    customized and expensive AMD Radeon R9 290X GPU based video card today.
    The Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290X Tri-X OC debuted at the same price as the
    ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 980. However today the Sapphire can be had for
    about $400. The SAPPHIRE card let us overclock the AMD Radeon R9 290X to
    its highest frequency we’ve ever achieved consistently.

    This is the AMD Radeon R9 290X at its best, at its absolute highest
    performance potential on air. However the AMD Radeon R9 290X is slower
    in every game, not just by a little, but by a lot. A highly overclocked
    R9 290X cannot keep up with a factory overclocked GTX 980, or a manual
    overclock GTX 980. It would be even worse if this were a stock, default
    clocked AMD Radeon R9 290X. It is time for AMD’s next generation,
    because Hawaii (R9 290/X) just got old.”

    I’m not waiting for AMD which has been rebranding its GPUs for years now, I will wait for Titan X and compare it to 980SLI for my next build. AMD red team has been dead for too long, and I make my bed with the cool quiet efficient Green Team.

    Reply

    • weee

      March 9, 2015 at 18:05

      amd’s 290x is over 2 years old now and your putting it against a card that is 4 like 4 months old amd does make better stuff its taken nvidia 2 years to catch up 😛 and nvidia are still losing to amd’s 295×2 just wait and see amd always brings out something that destroys the comp and than the comp plays dirty and pays company’s to make there shit work better

      Reply

      • Judge_Chip

        March 9, 2015 at 18:39

        Watt sucking Liquid/Radiator cooled Dual GPU cards are not a option, I can’t remember if/when AMD ever did destroy the competition so your statement, ” AMD always brings out something that destroys the comp” is false. Its AMD that releases GPUs that are hot noisy throttling and need OEMs do fix their lame reference coolers. Nvidia’s reference coolers are by far better than anything AMD has released. AMD plays dirty by seeding cherry picked GPUs to reviewers while consumer cards are hot watt wasting and noisy. A GTX980 would be a great option for those who buy dual GPU cards(not me) because it would much less watts that AMD’s 295×2 and would need a massive liquid cooled radiator. But the market is so small for dual GPU cards that there is no need for one.

        Reply

        • 200380051

          March 10, 2015 at 00:54

          In fact, the 295X-2 is still the fastest single card available today. Fastest != most efficient. But still, fastest.

          The “cherry-picking” part was a rumor and has been proven wrong (poor reference cooler induced variance beyond expected, that’s the bottom line). Cards with non-reference cooler do not exhibit such variance (http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon-r9-290x-press-sample-versus-retail_129583). We agree that the 200 series reference cooler was insufficient. But it’s cheap, making the card perfect for watercooled use.

          Power and thermals, though, are indeed huge points for nVidia. But again, it’s 2yo tech you are comparing to. Of course progress has been made.

          Finally, your above post did (not) point to this review :http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/03/03/asus_rog_poseidon_gtx_980_platinum_video_card_review , wherein is a top end watercooled and OC’d 980 being compared to an air-cooled 290X, at 1440P. Without Omega drivers. So yeah. Of course it shows the 980 winning. Mind you, i’m not saying the 290x is faster, it isn’t. But it’s clearly not as far behind as that old outdated review shows. Today, a watercooled and OC’d 290x is right on the heels of a watercooled and OC’d 980 at 4K.

          Anyways, to each its own. GCN chips age very well, so i’ll keep my 7970’s.

          Reply

          • Judge_Chip

            March 10, 2015 at 02:19

            Yes to each its own, but the Fact is that even though AMD’s GCN chips use the same TSMC 28nm process as Nvidia they run hot, suck watts, need water cooling and are two year old rebrands. The 295x-2 is the fastest card because it uses two GPUs that need a massive radiator to keep cool. I have never bought a dual GPU card for myself or my customers its much better to buy the best GPU you can afford now and later when prices come down add a second GPU as a SLI/xFire upgrade. If Nvidia wanted to they can easily use two GTX980 GPUs in a card that runs cooler and uses much less watts than AMD’s 295x-2 but the dual GPU/card market is miniscule, as it is now Nvidia dominates the dGPU market without a dual GPU card. My loyalty is to my and my customers wallet not to some fanatic brain washing by propaganda pumpers.

            GCN chips have not aged well, AMD has lost massive market share, its TSMC 28nm process that has aged well and its Nvidia’s Maxwell that has taken full advantage of that Fact while AMD rebrands old watt sucking GPUs. For AMD a new GPU architecture was needed yesterday but its fanatics will have to wait many more months until then they pump propaganda.

            Sorry but its so true.

          • Michael Allred

            March 10, 2015 at 04:44

            The 295x-2 isn’t a single card. That’s why it has that 2 tacked on to the end. So the fastest card goes to Nvidia with the 980, followed by the 780ti, assuming 1080p or 1440p resolutions.

          • Fastest Comment

            March 10, 2015 at 09:49

            The R9 295X2 is a single card. Two chips on a single board. So it is one card.

            You meant of course single chip cards. Now the R9 290X come out in 2013. So comparing a new card released in 2015 to a card released back in 2013… That’s why we waiting for AMD to release their new cards.

            2013 the R9 290X was compared to the gtx 780. AMD was faster. Then came the 780 Ti which edged the R9 290X. That was in 2013. 2014 AMD fastest card R9 295X2. 2015 AMD still the fastest card R9 295X2.

            Yes Nvidia = power consumption but if you just want raw power that causes Eskom blackouts then you get AMD.

          • Sean Forste

            June 1, 2015 at 07:34

            Well one thing you can’t deny is market share and nvidia is pounding amd into the floor there. To the point that amd has openly admitted it. AMD does in fact release fewer chips and tends to stay on the same architecture for longer because they probably lack the resources to pump out new tech as fast as nvidia does. So the 300 series will come out and probably will end up beating the nvidia 900 series. Watch then it won’t be 6 months and nvidia will release something faster that uses a large percentage less wattage. Then after that they will top themselves with a even faster Titan tier gpu just because they can and because it gains even more market gain. I am sorry but nvidia sells enough cards that they don’t have to wait for stock to clear out before they can develop something new. Yea that is right, amd said a while back they were waiting on some of the 200 series stock to sell before they would release something new. Why because they didn’t have enough financial resources to make something happen sooner. Also yea in this day and age it is all about energy efficiency and amd ass been blowing dick in that department for some time. Yea nvidia had there day there to but they now realize that energy savings is appealing in this day and age. Also havn’t you noticed nvidia hasn’t release any dual chip cards anymore. That is because they don’t need to anymore. They have figured out how to get performance without running multiple chips. Its way way cooler and uses way way less power and if you want to have the extra juice to run multi monitor setups then you can just sli. That is much easier to cool and thus overclocks better. I mean don’t you get it. The r9 295×2 couldn’t function without that dam water cooler. Your talking 500 watts to manage the performance that the titan x nearly does with 250 watts. That is the other thing i did a heaven face off the other day with my titan x. His two chip power sucking ozone depleting space heater managed to snuff me by 1000 points. Yet the dam thing was 80.c+ and throttling like no other. He didn’t even mean to mention that it was throttling just kind of came out. I laughed my ass off at that. yea you got a higher score all right but throttling how do you think that would play out in a game. I will take 55-60fps constant from one nvidia card compared to a 2 chip turd that bounces from 80-35-45-60fps and just all over the dam place. Sorry but you can til when fps bounce around like that. I have seen it by many many non bias reviewers, yes the r9 295×2 get higher frame rates but the experience on the titan x is just much more smoother. I am no idiot either the r9 390x will probably beat the titan x. then nvidia will release something 3-6 months later(hell even less since they already have time to work on there next cards with amd standing around holding there dicks) that draws less watts produce less heat, and takes the performance crown. Then amd will release there r9 395×2 because thats all they have in there arsenal. Then again nvidia will just release something even newer uses way way less power since its not a two chip card that slaps that card around. I don’t think amd is a bad company. They can make great cards. They have in the past. I never buy them but they have release some amazing shit but lately they have been acting really dumb and need to pull there heads out of there asses. There profit share will not allow otherwise and tbh i don’t want to have to pay even more for my Top tier titan cards.

        • 200380051

          March 10, 2015 at 00:54

          In fact, the 295X-2 is still the fastest single card available today. Fastest != most efficient. But still, fastest.

          The “cherry-picking” part was a rumor and has been proven wrong (poor reference cooler induced variance beyond expected, that’s the bottom line). Cards with non-reference cooler do not exhibit such variance (http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon-r9-290x-press-sample-versus-retail_129583). We agree that the 200 series reference cooler was insufficient. But it’s cheap, making the card perfect for watercooled use.

          Power and thermals, though, are indeed huge points for nVidia. But again, it’s 2yo tech you are comparing to. Of course progress has been made.

          Finally, your above post did (not) point to this review :http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/03/03/asus_rog_poseidon_gtx_980_platinum_video_card_review , wherein is a top end watercooled and OC’d 980 being compared to an air-cooled 290X, at 1440P. Without Omega drivers. So yeah. Of course it shows the 980 winning. Mind you, i’m not saying the 290x is faster, it isn’t. But it’s clearly not as far behind as that old outdated review shows. Today, a watercooled and OC’d 290x is right on the heels of a watercooled and OC’d 980 at 4K.

          Anyways, to each its own. GCN chips age very well, so i’ll keep my 7970’s.

          Reply

      • Ivan Roši?

        April 9, 2015 at 22:28

        weee you just prove whit this stament how red team is dead for to long …..btw compering gtx980 vs 295×2 its like compering test results whit 2950×2 whit gigabyte 3-sli gtx 980 water cooled http://www.gigabyte.com.hr/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5255#ov …. simply not fer

        Reply

    • Stoogie

      April 8, 2015 at 06:04

      I’m waiting for a card to be stronger than 2×7950’s, sadly the 970 is still 35% slower than this..

      Reply

  7. Mybal zich

    March 10, 2015 at 03:20

    AMD needed to launch a gpu that directly competed with the GTX 970 performance wise. Whatever that might of been the R9 370x or R9 380x whatever, they had a chance for a 1 2 punch combo. 1 release a card with legit 4gb memory that performs at or above a 970 for the same cost or maybe $50 lower. Seeing benchmarks of the card in action against current Maxwell offerings would of increased demand for the rest of the R9 300 series lineup. On the plus side, I am glad that their entire lineup of gpus are going to be brand new. This is good news for any new technology coming up such as DX12, free sync/adaptive sync whatever it is as well as liquid VR. Having multiple architectures to write code for would really create a lot issues with driver stability and performance.

    Reply

  8. Ivan Roši?

    April 9, 2015 at 22:21

    if thay reles it befor new skylake cpu’s think thay can get much higher on marked cos many ppl w8ing skylake cpu to build new rigs … if not i personaly proly will go whit gtx 980 and new i7 skylake …. its realy up to amd now

    Reply

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