AMD Radeon R9 295X2

AMD Radeon R9 295X2 Review – AMD’s Radeon R series of GPUs, be it the R7 or the R9 promised graphics performance at notvery- inflated prices, and for the most part, we dare say they’ve kept their word. But who’s to stop them from going a bit crazy and throw another processor into the card and have it come with watercooling options? Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the AMD Radeon R9 295X2. This reference design card is so gigantic that it arrived to us in a briefcase. This is for good reason too as the card comes stuck together with a liquid-cooling radiator and a big fan to help dissipate the heat.

To power the card, there are two 8-pin PCIe power ports, and you will need to use two separate PCIe cables, and not the daisychained ones as the card will not be able to get the power it requires otherwise. Another thing to note is that it is highly recommended that you get at least an 800 to a 1,000 watt power supply with gold rating, as one of these cards run upwards of 450 watts on load, and a PSU with steady wattage is required to ensure that the current flowing through the GPU stays as stable as possible. Delving in a bit deeper, the processor powering up the R9 295X2 is the same Hawaii chips that run the R9 290X, which means that the R9 295X2 is effectively a CrossFireX setup, despite being a single card solution.

Performance-wise, the R9 295X2 definitely performs beyond expectations, and in fact, seems a bit too overpowered if you’re only going to stick with a Full HD resolution display as we’re certain that this card is capable of 1,440p gaming even with the highest settings checked. During our tests of games such as Crysis 3 and Thief, the card performed spectacularly well, and what made it all even more impressive was that the card ran just relatively warm, and it’s all thanks to the water-cooling setup that came with the card. It is also relatively silent, and we’re saying this even with a giant radiator and fan cooling it.

With the right kind of motherboard, you can even have two R9 295X2s in a quad CrossFireX setup, although we do need to warn you that if this is a route you’d want to take, you will likely need to get a 1kW or a 1.2kW PSU. The AMD R9 295X2 is a beast in terms of size, price, performance and power consumption. Would we recommend this card to you? Yes, but only if you don’t mind paying exorbitant amounts of electricity bills.

Pros

• One of the most powerful single card GPUs in the market right now
• Runs cool, despite power consumption

Cons

• High Price
• Requires a high wattage PSU to run properly

AMD Radeon R9 295X2 Specifications

• Chipset: AMD R9 290X
• Core Clock: 1,018MHz
• Memory Size: 8GB DDR5
• Ports: 1x DVI-I, 4x Mini DisplayPort