A couple of days ago, the much awaited and anticipated AMD Radeon R9 290X graphics card gets listed in Newegg. Initially there were four R9 290x listed namely: ASUS Radeon R9 290X X9290X-DC2T-4GD5, MSI Radeon R9 290X 4GD5, SAPPHIRE Radeon R9 290X 100361SR and XFX Radeon R9-290X ENFC. The items were still in a “Pre-Release Coming Soon” status, but when you inspect the HTML code of the page, the final price of the AMD Radeon R9 290X were revealed as $729.99. Unfortunately, by the time I read about the news and checked the page, Newegg already changed the code price to $9999.99.
AMD already disclosed the suggested retail price of the other R7 and R9 graphics cards, except for their flagship R9 290x. There were rumors that the SRP would be around $699, and Newegg might have just confirmed that rumor. If MSI, Sapphire and XFX would release a reference card, then the price might be close to $729.
As expected, Asus will also be selling a DirectCU II TOP version of the R9 290x, and its already listed on Newegg as “ASUS Radeon R9 290X X9290X-DC2T-4GD5”. Expect that the price will be a tad higher since it will feature a non-reference cooler and by default it will have factory-overclock speeds.
The AMD Radeon R9 290X is priced a tad higher than the GTX 780, but if the leaked price is accurate, then it still has the price advantage over the GTX Titan (currently priced at $999), which is its direct rival. The R9 290x is also expected to be bundled with Battlefield 4.
Will you be buying the new R9 290x when it becomes available?
AMD Radeon R9 Specifications (Unconfirmed)
Codename: Hawaii
Architecture: 28nm
Stream Processors: 2816
TMU: 176
ROP: 44
Base Clock: 800 MHz
Turbo Clock: 1000 MHz
Memory: 4GB GDDR5
Memory Interface: 512-Bit
Memory Clock: 5 GHz (effective)
Power Connector: 8+6 Pin
PCV VRM: 5+1
