First look: AMD's new Radeon R9 290X Hawaii GPU

AMD seems to be giving us little morsels of information about their new graphics card and that’s just getting us even hungrier. At least we can put a face to our mystery friend now before we learn its true name and full specifications. We got a chance for a brief photo opportunity aboard the majestic USS Missouri here at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. This is possibly their flagship offering so our previous theory of AMD doing a top-down launch is correct after all. The card has a new design for the heatsink cover but underneath, we suspect the same aluminium cooler with copper heatpipes and their trademark blower-style fan. The card is completely sealed off from all sides which should ensure better airflow through the cooler.

AMD R9 290X has a new design for the heatsink cover

The AMD R9 209X has an interesting design

Coming to the ports, we have two DVI-D ports, HDMI and DisplayPort. The card will require a 6-pin power connector and an 8-pin power connector so we could be looking at a TDP of around 200W – 240W. Now for the interesting bit, notice that the typical CrossFire connectors aren't present. We can clearly see two contact points for where the bridge would have typically gone but there aren’t any grooves. This can mean two things. One, either AMD has a new type of connector for CrossFire, which seems unlikely. Or two, since this is a demo unit, it’s possible that it’s not the finished product. Also missing is the little switch to toggle between the two BIOS modes. The card looks and feels about the same as the current HD 7970.

A six-pin and an eight-pin power connectors on top

Notice that the typical CrossFire connectors aren't present

Finally, a quick look at the back reveals AMD’s new codename for the card which confirms earlier rumours about its internal naming scheme. Earlier leaks pointed towards the performance of the R9 290X being somewhere between the GTX Titan and GTX 690. While this is all good, we can’t wait to hear what AMD will price it at and the other software announcements that will accompany the launch. Can we see a similar solution to Nvidia’s GeForce Experience? Can AMD get their drivers right from the get go to make the R9 290X a viable (and hopefully cheaper) alternative? All that and more should be answered soon as the launch kicks off.

A quick look at the back reveals AMD’s new name for the card

Video out ports include two DVI ports, an HDMI and a DisplayPort

Don’t forget to catch our live blog right here as it happens.