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.

Radeon R7 360, R7 370, & R9 380
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  • FlushedBubblyJock - Wednesday, June 24, 2015 - link

    I totally agree chizow, and I'm glad someone calls them out on it, because it's ridiculous.
  • bigboxes - Saturday, June 20, 2015 - link

    C'mon chizow. Stop with the nVidia fanboy antics. Just stop. It's way past old.
  • FlushedBubblyJock - Wednesday, June 24, 2015 - link

    It's not old at all someone has to be able to counter the lies and the spins, are you against that ?
  • D. Lister - Saturday, June 20, 2015 - link

    AMD has a history of sending cherry-picked samples to reviewers:

    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-...

    http://techreport.com/review/25712/are-retail-rade...

    http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon-r9-290x-pre...

    http://www.maximumpc.com/amd-radeon-r9-290x-press-...

    Maybe this time around, there just aren't enough cherries to pick.
  • FlushedBubblyJock - Wednesday, June 24, 2015 - link

    November 2013, and now, they released it again...

    I saw a review on the 390x with power usage and it used 468 watts max draw and 368 watts average.

    I think AMD has done an amazing job slamming voltage and power into that old core to crank it up, again, but the 290x can just be overclocked to match it, since no one has found any real differences at all yet, and that is pretty sad.
  • just4U - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link

    Well.. no. It's going to be pretty good according to leaks, but I do get what you mean by the earlier comments.. until we get some full on testing in fanboys from "both" camps can bite me. The majority of us like both companies I think and constantly switch between the two, there is no favoritism.
  • anandreader106 - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link

    amen.
  • Refuge - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link

    +1
  • TEAMSWITCHER - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link

    Actually, for me....AMD is......near DEATH. Their CPU business died years ago, and today their GPUs all seem to lack....competence. The very presence of that radiator on the FURY X is a sign of their desperation. They are going to clock the bejesus out of that card to put up numbers that resemble a 980ti. But look at the pricing...if it were any faster...any faster at all...they would demand a higher price to pay for the more expensive HBM implementation. I know that benchmarks are coming, but the bigger story will be the aestethics. Having to find a place for that Radiator is deal breaker, and the air cooled Fury Vanilla (or whatever the hell it's called) is not going to put up some great numbers....obviously just look at the pricing...it never lies.
  • xthetenth - Thursday, June 18, 2015 - link

    Yes, clearly offering a product with vastly better cooling is a sign of desperation, as shown by the EVGA hybrid kits to make up for the shortcomings of the 980, 980 Ti, and Titan X.

    But then again we actually know that the clock speed on the Fury X is going to be and it's not going to be ridiculously clocked, which any idiot could figure out if they extrapolated from numbers for a properly cooled 290X.

    It takes a really special sort of customer to manage to have a case with no 120mm fan slots and to confuse pricing for quality. You probably think the 980 and Titan X's performance is proportional to their price. You also probably think a 780 Ti was an acceptable buy compared to a 290X in retrospect.

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