It looks like MSI redesigned the cooler for Radeon R9 290X. It is now definitely triple-slot design due to higher heat sink (GTX 780 Lightning was also 3-slot, but this card is slightly bigger). This change was probably caused by much more demanding power design of the Hawaii GPU.
The Tri-Frozr cooler shroud is the same as on GTX 780 Lightning. It was designed in Triple Force architecture. Other interesting features of MSI Lighting are: Triple Level Signals (load level LED indicators), Military Class 4 components, enhanced power design (Digital PWM) and TWIN Bios.
The leaked PCB shot revealed that we might be looking at 12+3+2 phase power design, which is definitely an upgrade from reference board. Whats more it will also require 3 power connectors including a pair of 8pins and a single 6pin.
The MSI R9 290X Lightning is equipped with Hawaii XT GPU which holds 2816 Stream Cores and 64 ROPs. Additionally we have 4GB GDDR5 memory and 512-bit interface.
All that will be premium priced. However, Anandtech did not ask about the price and the release date, so this remains unanswered.
Along with notebooks and all-in-ones, MSI had quite a few large GPUs on display. The past month saw a massive shortage of AMD GPUs, thanks in no small part to the surge in Bitcoin/Litecoin prices. Couple that with the holiday shopping season and the R9 290 and 290X have been selling for well over MSRP R9 290 today continues to sell at $500 and more, while R9 290X has pushed into the $600+ range and even the rebadged R9 280X (7970 GHz Edition) has been selling at more than $100 over MSRP.
Into that mix, MSI is releasing a gigantic R9 290X with their triple-fan and triple-slot GPU. The R9 290X Lightning should have the cooling capacity to keep the Hawaii cores running at maximum performance, but the drawback of course is that running more than two such cards in a single case will prove problematic at best. For those who are looking for the performance of the R9 290X without the noise, however, this may be the perfect solution.
2x 8pin + 1x 6 pin power connector per card?
Sounds like it's going to want watercooling
Looks awesome, and massive! We've seen plenty of triple slot coolers, but look at that heatsink! Wonder how much the heatsink alone weighs.
Would really like to see a 290x 6GB version, since there is one for 280x.
It would be 8gb. 280x has a 384 bit bus (3/6gb)
Either way, 4gb should be plenty I would think...?
With modded Skyrim using 3GB at 1080p today, I can't immagine 4GB being enough in about two years. To get the most out of a card's lifetime, I'd buy a 290x now and another one for CFX about 2 years later when they'll be cheap, to get another one or two years out of them. Hence the need for a really future-proof amount or VRAM, since I won't be able to upgrade that with another card like the processing power.
In my dreams they would man up and use 8gB of 7000 MT/s Samsung GDDR5.
I would totally get one if that was the case.
For how much? With that much hardware your talking titan prices...might as well get a pair of 290s now.
Just to see the real limits of Hawaii.
And I already have 1x 290x and 2x 290. I don't need more reference cards anyways .
MSI definitely has the margins ATM on 290x to use real quality parts like Nvidia does. I want to see it in reality :O.
You still got those crappy 7970s in your sig, I'd pay you $5 and recycle them for you
Looks like an impressive hunk of PCB/Metal/Plastic!
Three slots though... I'd imagine that will preclude the possibility for a lot of 3 card Crossfire configs.
This will be the card to see the best possible oc on the 290x on air or water so will be interesting to see in the near future. Hey IEC I might of missed it but what was the highest stable oc's have you seen on your two Sapphire 290 Tri X cards so far and are you planning on doing a review thread on them?
1225/1675 on one card, 1100/1600 on the other. Both on air, stock coolers, stock BIOS, point and click overclocking using Sapphire Trixx, +20% PT limit. I think to get their full potential I would need to go custom loop water cooling and flash it with a custom BIOS.
I've got $600 worth of water cooling gear in my cart but just can't seem to click the button... I'll make up my mind here in the next day or so. Part of me wants to justify it by saying I will at minimum use it twice - once with these Sapphires and then again when I can get a pair of MSI R9 290X Lightnings for a reasonable price...
Looks like an impressive hunk of PCB/Metal/Plastic!
Three slots though... I'd imagine that will preclude the possibility for a lot of 3 card Crossfire configs.