Radeon R9 295X2

Radeon R9 295X2 Review – This is one of the very few graphics cards that AMD actually sells to consumers, and there’s good reason for it. Tucked away beneath that imposing cooler are not one but two GPUs, each of the R9 290X variety. These are potent processors in their own right, each pumping out 250W of TDP, which is why AMD has had to mount a custom Allin- One water cooler to this card, which is enhanced further by an air cooler mounted in the middle of the heatsink.

With another fan spinning on the external radiator, it’s no surprise that this card clocked the loudest in our sound test, measuring at a very noticeable 55dB. This was outside of a case on an open testbench, so we’d guess it gets even louder in a cramped PC case.

The card might have 8GB of onboard memory, but games can only make use of 4GB, as it’s split down the middle to serve each of the GPUs. This also means the card requires CrossFire support to live up to its full potential, yet we’ve seen time and time again that AMD takes its sweet time to release updated CrossFire drivers that support new games. Unfortunately this card didn’t do well in our benchmarks, as it’s designed for much higher resolutions; even our 2560 x 1440 test wasn’t enough. For shits and giggles we ran this card at 4K in the Shadow of Mordor test, where it scored an average FPS of 59. Very tasty.

When it comes to ultimate bang for buck, this card has the potential to run rings around the GTX 980 Ti, but AMD really needs to lift its game in the drive department for us to give a CrossFire solution the thumbs up. Considering it hasn’t released a WHQL certified driver since 2014, AMD obviously has a lot of work to do.

Pros

• Supreme 4k performance
• Very cool design

Cons

• Loud
• Relies on update CrossFire drivers to flourish

Radeon R9 295X2 Specifications

• GPU ARCHITECTURE 28nm
• API SUPPORT DirectX® 12, Mantle, OpenGL® 4.3, OpenCL™
• PCI EXPRESS® VERSION 3
• GPU CLOCK SPEED Up to 1018 MHz
• MEMORY BANDWIDTH Up to 640 GB/s
• MEMORY AMOUNT Up to 8GB GDDR5
• STREAM PROCESSING UNITS Up to 5632 (88 Compute Units)
• REQUIRED POWER SUPPLY CONNECTORS 2 x 8-pin
• Product Page : http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/graphics/desktop/r9#