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Hot on the heels of the Nvidia GTX Titan Z, AMD has revealed its own dual-processor GPU behemoth – the R9 295X2.
Essentially two R9 290X’s on a single card, the new GPU squares off firmly against the Titan Z with one significant difference. The Titan Z costs $2,999. The R9 295X2 costs ‘just’ $1,500.
Interestingly the R9 295X2 is the first dual-processor GPU that actually beats the performance of two vanilla 290X’s thanks to its in-built water cooling system (integrating a pump) which has allowed AMD to bump up the clock settings of both cores.
That means that rather than simply getting two 5.6 Teraflop 290X’s, you’re actually getting a 11.5TF card. And it all operates at a lower temperature than a standalone 290X, although the 500 Watt power draw is quite substantial.
There’s also 8GB of GDDR5. That’s somewhat short of the 12GB found on the Titan Z, but Nvidia’s card falls over 40 per cent behind in compute terms with just 8TF of compute power.
The R9 295X2 will go on sale later this month.
