- Dec 18, 2008
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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.
http://videocardz.com/48647/msi-shows-radeon-r9-290x-lightning
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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.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7625/msi-gpus-at-ces-2014-massive-r9-290x-lightning-and-more
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