AMD's flagship dual-GPU graphics card, the Radeon Pro Duo, is slated for retail availability from April 26, 2016, according to HardwareBattle. The card was announced at the company's Capsaicin, in mid-March. Reviews of this card could be posted much earlier. Based on a pair of 28 nm "Fiji" GPUs, with two sets of 4,096 stream processors, 256 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 4 GB of 4096-bit HBM memory, each, the Radeon Pro Duo will be launched at the same price as the company's previous flagship product, the Radeon R9 295X2, at US $1,499. The card could feature on a variety of high-end gaming PCs, and VR content creation workstations. In the retail channel, AMD's traditional add-in board (AIB) partners could launch the reference-design card.

The new AMD Radeon Pro Duo, announced earlier today, takes the crown for being the world's fastest graphics card. According to the company's internal testing, in which it compared the card to its previous-generation flagship Radeon R9 295X2, and NVIDIA's fastest card, the GeForce GTX TITAN Z, on 3DMark FireStrike, at resolutions of 1080p, 1440p, and 2160p; the Pro Duo was found to be as much as 51 percent faster than the GTX TITAN Z. The three cards were tested on a machine with a Core i7-5960X processor, 16 GB of quad-channel DDR4 memory, Windows 10, v15.301 driver for the AMD cards, and GeForce 361.91 drivers for the NVIDIA card.

At 1080p, the Radeon Pro Duo scores 20150 points, compared to 16717 points of the R9 295X2, and 14945 points of the GTX TITAN Z, the Radeon Pro Duo leads the GTX TITAN Z by 34.8 percent in this resolution. At 1440p, the Radeon Pro Duo scores 11466 points, compared to 9250 points for the R9 295X2, and 7740 points of the GTX TITAN Z; the Pro Duo leads the GTX TITAN Z by 48.13 percent. Finally, at the resolution which really matters for this product, 4K Ultra HD, the Radeon Pro Duo scores 6211 points, compared to the 5121 points of the R9 295X2, and 4099 points of the GTX TITAN Z.

This has been a roller-coaster month for high-end PC graphics. The timing of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980 Ti launch had us giving finishing touches to its review with our bags to Taipei still not packed. When it launched, the GTX 980 Ti set AMD a performance target and a price target. Then began a 3-week wait for AMD to launch its Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card. The dance is done, the dust has settled, and we know who has won - nobody. AMD didn't get the R9 Fury X wrong, but NVIDIA got its GTX 980 Ti right. At best, this stalemate yielded a 4K-capable single-GPU graphics option from each brand at $650. You already had those in the form of the $650-ish Radeon R9 295X2, or a pair GTX 970 cards. Those with no plans of a 4K display already had great options in the form of the GTX 970, and price-cut R9 290X.

The Radeon R9 290 series launch from Fall-2013 stirred up the high-end graphics market in a big way. The $399 R9 290 made NVIDIA look comically evil for asking $999 for the card it beat, the GTX TITAN; while the R9 290X remained the fastest single-GPU option, at $550, till NVIDIA launched the $699 GTX 780 Ti, to get people back to paying through their noses for the extra performance. Then there were two UFO sightings in the form of the GTX TITAN Black, and the GTX TITAN-Z, which made no tangible contributions to consumer choice. Sure, they gave you full double-precision floating point (DPFP) performance, but DPFP is of no use to gamers. So what could have been the calculation at AMD and NVIDIA as June 2015 approached? Here's a theory.Image credit: Mahspoonis2big, Reddit

AMD today announced that qualifying purchases from participating retailers of an AMD Radeon R9 295X2, R9 290X or R9 290 graphics card will be eligible for a complimentary copy of 2K's Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth.

"I personally have enjoyed more than 500 hours of game time with the Sid Meier's Civilization franchise, and I'm thrilled by what AMD and Firaxis Games have done with the Mantle graphics API to make Beyond Earth a smooth, high-performance marvel," said Roy Taylor, corporate vice president, ISV/IHV Partner Group, AMD. "AMD believes that gamers should freely experience that remarkable development work, and our new Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth promotion offers exactly that as a 'thank you' to new AMD Radeon customers."

Under pressure from its own recently launched GeForce GTX 980 cannibalizing its $3,000 flagship GeForce GTX TITAN-Z (you can buy GTX 980 Quad-SLI at $2,200), NVIDIA could finally review its pricing, in the retail channel. The company recently reduced its price for the OEM channel, letting pre-built gaming PC manufacturers source the card at a lower price, whether those price-savings were transferred to the end-users, is a different question. To what measure NVIDIA could lower prices of the GTX TITAN-Z, is not known at this point. Retailers like OCUK were seen offering their GTX TITAN-Z cards at a slightly reduced price, last week. Across the big pond, American retailer Newegg sold-out an ASUS-branded GTX TITAN-Z for as low as US $1,500.

In the wake of GTX 980, AMD cut prices of its dual-GPU flagship product, the Radeon R9 295X2, down to $999. It's hard to imagine that competition from this card, and the GTX 980, are the only factors driving down prices of the GTX TITAN-Z in such a big way. Could NVIDIA be working on its next dual-GPU flagship graphics card already? Perhaps one based on a pair of GM204 chips, with thermal and power requirements as low as those of the GTX 690? Watch this space for more.

It turns out that the big OEM design win liquid cooling solutions maker Asetek was bragging about, is the Radeon R9 390X, and the "undisclosed OEM" AMD. Pictures of a cooler shroud is doing rounds on Chinese tech forums, which reveals something that's similar in design to the Radeon R9 295X2, only designed for single-GPU. The shroud has its fan intake pushed to where it normally is for single-GPU cards; with cutouts for the PCIe power connectors, and a central one, through which liquid cooling tubes pass through.

One can also take a peek at the base-plate of the cooler, which will cool the VRM and memory under the fan's air-flow. The cooler design reveals that AMD wants its reference-design cards to sound quieter "at any cost," even if it means liquid cooling solutions that can be messy with multi-card CrossFire setups, and in systems that already use liquid-cooling for the CPU; and leave it to AIB partners to come up with air-cooled cards, with meatier heatsinks. Other specs of the R9 390X are unknown, as is launch date. It could be based on a member of the "Pirate Islands" family of GPUs, of which the new "Tonga" GPU driving the R9 285 is a part of. A possible codename of AMD's big chip from this family is "Fiji."

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced the limited-edition Ares III, the world's fastest water-cooled gaming graphics card with a slim, single-slot form factor. Powered by dual AMD Radeon Hawaii XT R9 290X GPUs factory-overclocked at 1030 MHz, and boasting 8 GB of GDDR5 memory with a clock speed of 5000 MHz, ROG Ares III delivers blazingly-fast performance. In 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme testing, this monster card performs 15% faster and runs Battlefield 4 at frame rates 33% greater than GTX Titan Z in 4K Ultra High Definition (3840x2160) resolution.

Featuring a hand-carved EK water block, ROG Ares III has a premium, water-cooled design that provides 25% cooler temperatures than the reference Radeon R9 295X2. ROG Ares III is made with exclusive ASUS Super Alloy Power components for enhanced durability and cooling, and comes with GPU Tweak for overclocking and online streaming that is as simple as it is flexible.

AMD announced a series of retailer-specific promotions for its flagship Radeon R9 295X2 dual-GPU graphics card. The card, which launched at US $1,499, will be available for as low as $999, as part of retailer promotions. End users (you), and not just OEMs, will be able to buy the card at the three-figure price. The card will ship with its usual Radeon Rewards package, giving you access to over a dozen free games. Based on a pair of 28 nm "Hawaii" GPUs, the Radeon R9 295X2 features a total of 5,760 Graphics CoreNext 1.1 stream processors, 352 TMUs, and 128 ROPs, split between its two GPUs, and 8 GB of memory across its two 512-bit wide GDDR5 memory interfaces.

VisionTek Products LLC, (VisionTek), a leading manufacturer of award-winning, high-performance upgrades and accessories for PCs and Macs, today announced the addition of new graphics cards models, complete cooling kits, and card/cooling kit bundles to its high-performance liquid cooled PC compatible CryoVenom line. To complement the CryoVenom R9 290 liquid cooled graphics card, the "quietest, coolest, and fastest" single AMD GPU ever tested by PC Magazine, and Finalist in the Best New Product - Computer Hardware category of The 2014 American Business Awards, CryoVenom Liquid Cooling Kits were developed in conjunction with EKWB to solve four major concerns of those considering liquid cooling:

• Warranty. Modifications can void the warranty of a standard GPU. With a CryoVenom Liquid Cooling Kit, a system builder can still design and build a custom machine, yet enjoy the protection of a VisionTek warranty.
• Compatibility. Designed as a complete solution versus separately sourced components, certified-for-use kits are available for the VisionTek R9 290, 290X, and 295X2 graphics cards.
• Real World Use Tested. All components have been tested in actual use by the VisionTek Custom Shop team to ensure effective, high-performance liquid cooling.
• Ease of Installation. Everything is included - including pre-test and appearance convenience items - and were specifically designed to facilitate a quick, hassle-free install.

Diamond Multimedia today announced the 'Diamond AMD Radeon R9 295X2 Graphics Card Giveaway', a competition hosted on its Facebook page. Running to July 7th, 2014 at noon (PT), the 'Diamond AMD Radeon R9 295X2 Graphics Card Giveaway' is a prize draw open to residents of the contiguous United States and Canada. Participation couldn't be easier, simply 'Like' the Diamond Multimedia Facebook page, provide your email, and you could win a world's fastest graphics card, Diamond AMD Radeon R9295X2D58G graphics card, featuring a premium built with an air + liquid hybrid cooling solution, powered by AMD Radeon R9 295X2 GPU, integrated with 8GB GDDR5 memory, 512 *2-bits memory interface, DVI-D/ mini DisplayPort *4, and Core Clock: 1018 MHz.

MAINGEAR, an award-winning PC system builder of custom gaming desktops, notebooks, and workstations, brings unadulterated performance with their new MAINGEAR EPIC TORQ PC. The TORQ rounds out their EPIC line featuring the world's first CPU and GPU liquid cooled small form factor PC that performs amazingly fast, offers upgradability and houses the latest hardware technology including the new NVIDIA GeForce TITAN Z and the latest 4th generation unlocked Intel processors.

The new MAINGEAR TORQ is a small but mighty form factor that is upgradable, flexible, and screams high-performance. Offering the latest technology including the new 4th Gen unlocked Intel processors that offer higher overclocks up to 5 GHz and the latest GPUs from Nvidia and AMD.

We went up close with PowerColor's air-cooled Radeon R9 295X2 Devil13 graphics card. Although technically an R9 295X2, the company is choosing to call it "dual-R9 290X." The card is massive, easily bigger in size than even NVIDIA's GTX TITAN-Z. It uses a huge triple-slot cooling solution with individual aluminium fin heatsinks for each of the two GPUs, and a base plate cooling the bridge chip, VRM, and memory; ventilated by three 100 mm fans that can be individually tweaked. The card draws power from four (yes, four) 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Display outputs include two dual-link DVI, and one each of HDMI and DisplayPort.

When AMD chose to give the R9 295X2 liquid cooling it had only one thing on its mind, to tame its noise. Given that, the question on everyone's mind would be how loud this air-cooled card is. PowerColor's card, much like AMD's reference R9 290X, features two BIOSes, "Performance" and "Quiet." Even with all the show floor noise, the card was audible in "performance" mode. We didn't get to hear it out in the "quiet" mode, but PowerColor assured us that it's working on getting the card quiet. Unlike AMD's reference card, PowerColor may have to stiffen the card's throttle to achieve that.

EK Water Blocks, Ljubljana-based premium liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is proud to introduce a new Full Cover water block for AMD flagship dual-processor graphics card Radeon R9 295X2, the only true single-slot liquid cooling solution on the market.

Unlike factory provided closed-loop cooling solution, the EK-FC R9-295X2 is a complex design water block. It directly cools the GPU, RAM as well as VRM (voltage regulation module) as water flows directly over these critical areas thus allowing the graphics card and it's VRM to remain stable under high overclocks. EK-FC R9-295X2 water block also features a very high flow design therefore it can be easily used in liquid cooling systems using weaker water pumps.

Here's why NVIDIA still hasn't launched the GeForce GTX TITAN-Z at the $2,999 price-point it so boldly announced at GTC 2014 - it's not worth its price by a long shot, at least not when stacked up against the Radeon R9 295X2, according to a review published by Hong Kong based print magazine E-Zone. In most tests, the two are evenly matched, with the R9 295X2 even outperforming it by a significant margin in some. In tests where the GTX TITAN-Z leads the R9 295X2, the lead isn't significant, at least nowhere close to justifying its price. The only way NVIDIA can sell the GTX TITAN-Z, if these numbers hold true, is by delivering on its 375W TDP figure.

The review finds that a system running a single GTX TITAN-Z draws 33W less power than the same system running two GTX 780 Ti cards in SLI, and 60W less power than the same system running a single R9 295X2 (tested at FireStrike Extreme load). Unless you plan on future-proofing yourself for the next decade, the lower power draw doesn't justify the $1,500 higher price. So what explains the delay in launching the GTX TITAN-Z? Either a redesign with higher clocks (and proportionately higher power draw), or development of faster drivers.

EK Water Blocks unveiled the first pictures of its full-coverage water block for AMD Radeon R9 295X2. It takes a meaty block to cool the 500-Watt dual-GPU monstrosity, which is also the fastest graphics card money can buy. The EK-FC R9-295X2 from EK is one of the few full-cover blocks that feature coolant channels that actually span the entire obverse length of the card. The channel is designed in a way that coolant is distributed uniformly to both the GPU systems, their neighboring memory, and the central portion of the card, housing its feisty VRM and PCIe bridge chip. The block comes in two variants, one with clear acrylic top over the two GPUs, with an aluminum central top; and one with opaque acetal top instead of clear acrylic. The two blocks come in two further variants, clear copper and nickel-plated copper block material. To top it all off, EK appears to either be bundling, or separately selling a single-slot expansion bracket for the card (a carryover from its HD 7990 block).

One of AMD's lead testers, Jason Megit tweeted these pictures of a gaming PC build running Lichdom: Battlemage at "super high resolution." How high? 11520 x 2160 pixels, or a 3-display Eyefinity setup using Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) monitors. You might think the system must be running three or four top of the line cards, given that Lichdom: Battlemage is driven by CryEngine 3, the same one that powers Crysis 3, from the makers of some of the most GPU-intensive games; but it isn't. The game was running on a single Radeon R9 295X2 dual-GPU graphics card. Lichdom: Battlemage is currently available as a pre-alpha, if you pre-order the game for $19.99 on Steam. From the looks of it, Lichdom: Battlemage is shaping up to be a modern-day Hexen.

While AMD may have scored one up over NVIDIA by making its 500-Watt dual-GPU graphics card, the Radeon R9 295X2, a 2-slot thick product that draws power from just two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, AMD's implementation also lugs along a radiator and coolant tubing that not everyone may find room in their cases for. Some enthusiasts may simply not trust factory-fitted water cooling solutions. For such people and more, who'd like to keep their builds "dry," PowerColor is coming up with the first truly non-reference design R9 295X2, the Devil13.

Pictured below, the R9 295X2 Devil13 from PowerColor features a completely custom-design PCB that is said to feature a meatier VRM than the one you get on reference design boards; which draws power from 4 (that's right, four) 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The PCB appears taller but just as long as the reference one, and features a back-plate that doubles up as structural reinforcement. The cooler is an interesting piece of engineering. It appears to feature two independent aluminium fin heatsinks, each over one of the two GPUs, and a base-plate heatsink to cool the memory, VRM, and bridge chip. The contraption is then ventilated by three 100 mm fans that appear to feature lateral+axial hybrid air-flow blades, on their impellers. PowerColor could launch the R9 295X2 Devil13 at Computex 2014, if not sooner.

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX TITAN-Z missed the bus on its earlier 29th April, 2014 launch date, which was confirmed to the press by several retailers, forcing some AIC partners to content with paper-launches of cards bearing their brand. It turns out that the delay is going to be by just a little over a week. The GeForce GTX TITAN-Z is now expected to be available on the 8th of May, 2014. That will be when you'll be able to buy the US $3,000 graphics card off the shelf.

A dual-GPU graphics card based on a pair of 28 nm GK110 GPUs, the GTX TITAN-Z features a total of 5,760 CUDA cores (2,880 per GPU), 480 TMUs (240 per GPU), 96 ROPs (48 per GPU), and a total of 12 GB of GDDR5 memory, spread across two 384-bit wide memory interfaces. Although each of the two GPUs is configured identical to a GTX TITAN Black, it features lower clock speeds. The core is clocked at 705 MHz (889 MHz on the GTX TITAN Black), with GPU Boost frequencies of up to 876 MHz (up to 980 MHz on the GTX TITAN Black); while the memory remains at 7.00 GHz. The card draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and its maximum power draw is rated at 375W. It will be interesting to see how it stacks up against the Radeon R9 295X2 by AMD, which costs half as much, at $1,500.

NVIDIA's flagship dual-GPU graphics card, the GeForce GTX TITAN-Z, was expected to go on sale later today. That launch is now delayed, according to a SweClockers report. The three thousand Dollar question is why. According to some sources, NVIDIA is effecting a last minute design change that sees a meatier cooler on the card, than the one Jen-Hsun Huang rafikied to the press at GTC 2014.

There may have been a last-minute realization at Santa Clara, that the card - as presented at GTC - may not cut it in the ring against AMD's Radeon R9 295X2, or at least it won't be able to warrant its vulgar $3000 price tag, against the R9 295X2's $1500; despite AMD's rather messy three-piece approach to its liquid-cooled product (the card itself, a radiator, and coolant tubing), and so NVIDIA could be redesigning the GTX TITAN-Z with an even bigger cooler, to facilitate higher clock speeds.

Auburn-based Koolance Inc. has now made available the VID-AR295X2, a full-cover water block compatible with AMD's release-released Radeon R9 295X2 dual-GPU graphics card. The block weighs in 1.41 kg and features a high-performance microfin (0.5m m) design, a solid copper construction with anti-corrosive nickel plating, and G ¼ threading.

Koolance's VID-AR295X2 can be used in single- and milt-card configurations and is selling for $179.99.

AMD released a WHQL-signed version of its Catalyst 14.4 software suite, its first in four months (the previous one being 13.12 WHQL). The driver builds on the Catalyst 14.4 Release Candidate the company shipped out a little earlier this month, to lend immediate support for Radeon R9 295X2, which hit the shelves on the 21st. The four highlights of Catalyst 14.4 include support for the R9 295X2, CrossFire frame-pacing improvements for a number of games, full support for OpenGL 4.4 API, and bug-fixes for AMD Mantle API.

Among the games AMD worked to improve CrossFire performance of, include Crysis 3, which sees improved frame-pacing; Far Cry 3, which sees improved 3-GPU and 4-GPU scaling; Anno 2070, which sees an overall CrossFire scaling improvement of 34 percent; Titanfall, which sees reduced game flickering an micro-stutter; and Metro: Last Light, which sees 10 percent improvement in CrossFire scaling. The driver also addresses bugs related to 3x1 Eyefinity setups using three Ultra HD displays. For gamers running Battlefield 4 with its Mantle renderer, AMD addressed the performance slowdown seen when switching windows using Alt+Tab; and fuzzy textures when playing the game on rotated displays.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 14.4 WHQL for Windows 8/7/Visa 64-bit | Windows 8/7/Vista 32-bit | Windows XP 32-bit and 64-bit

Sapphire unveiled the industry's first factory-overclocked Radeon R9 295X2 graphics card. The R9 295X2 OC from Sapphire sticks to AMD reference design, and ships in the metal suitcase, much like its base model; but comes with factory-overclocked speeds of 1030 MHz core (vs. 1018 MHz reference), and 5.20 GHz memory (vs. 5.00 GHz reference). The rest of its feature-set is identical to that of its reference-design product. The company didn't reveal pricing. The R9 295X2 is a dual-GPU card with a pair of 28 nm "Hawaii" GPUs, with 2,816 stream processors, 176 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 512-bit wide memory interfaces, each; and each holding 4 GB of memory, totaling 8 GB on the card.

NVIDIA's upcoming flagship graphics card, the dual-GPU GeForce GTX TITAN-Z, could see the light of the day (well, lights of a hardware store/warehouse), on April 29, 2014. That's when you'll be able to buy the card from ground stores off the shelf, or order one online. It's expected to stick to the price NVIDIA announced when it was unveiled at GTC 2014, which is a wallet-scorching US $2,999 (excl. taxes). Depending on your country's taxation and import excise, you could be paying anywhere between 10 and 33 percent over that. In Japan, for instance, the card is expected to be priced around 400,000¥ (incl. taxes), which converts to about $3,900.

The GeForce GTX TITAN-Z is a dual-GPU graphics card with a pair of 28 nm GK110 GPUs. The chips are configured to feature all 2,880 CUDA cores, 240 TMUs, and 48 ROPs at their disposal; and are each wired to 6 GB of GDDR5 memory across their 384-bit wide memory interfaces, totaling 12 GB on the card. The best part? Unlike AMD's Radeon R9 295X2, the GTX TITAN-Z is air-cooled. Just be ready with three slots in your system, and give up on your dream of equipping your ITX rig with it.

The German-based liquid cooling specialist Aqua Computer has added the full cover water block kryographics Vesuvius for R9 295X2 cards to its portfolio. The block is entirely made in Germany and milled from 2.72kg high-purity electrolytic copper raw material. It covers the GPUs, all RAM chips, the voltage regulators and the PCIe bridge chip. All areas are covered by the flow path of the cooling liquid to provide an excellent cooling performance.

Both GPUs are covered by a micro structure with a 0.5 mm grid. The water flows through both structures in parallel which allows an even temperature for both GPUs. To achieve this effect the cooling structures use a different depth which makes sure that the same amount of water flows through both of them.

MSI, the gaming force in Graphics Cards is happy to announce the availability of the new AMD Radeon R9 295X2 Graphics Card. With two R9 290X GPUs on-board with clock speeds up to 1018 MHz and 8 Gigabyte of GDDR5, the R9 295X2 delivers the most insane frame rates in todays and future games. The card is cooled with a zeo maintenance liquid cooling system so gamers can expect cool temperatures, quiet operation and consistent performance. So whether you're looking at the best card for Gaming at 4K and higher resolutions or want to be in the driver's seat for this year's most stunning PC Games, the R9 295X2 is the right choice.

The record-shattering dual-GPU R9 295X2 is packed with two Hawaii XT GPUs featuring 5632 processors running at speeds up to 1018 MHz. The massive 8 Gigabyte of GDDR5 runs at 5 GHz and delivers enough bandwidth to drive 4K screens or 5 1080p screens in Eyefinity. Together with support for TrueAudio and Mantle technology, the R9 295X2 is ready to power the best games of 2014.