AMD is hanging its hat on the old adage "two is better than one" with its latest GPU release.
Codenamed Project Hydra, Radeon R9 295X2 is the company's latest swing at graphics prowess, and AMD seems fairly confident in saying the newest Radeon will be the fastest graphics card on the market when it's release.
The double trouble (for other card makers) comes from the fact that the whole system relies on two R9 295X2 chips. And AMD isn't relying on sheer numbers to give its new GPU a boost; the company tweaked each one to run faster than it would separately. The end result is 11.5 TFLOPS of compute performance.
The sleek R9 295X2 is "built for performance, finished for looks [and] loaded with features," according to AMD. It's targeted at 4K gaming and has double the performance of its predecessor, the R9 290X.
The cool down
Memory hits 8GB of GDDR5 and features a dual 512-bit memory bus. It supports DirectX 11.2 as well as Mantle.
To keep all the graphics processing from melting the Radeon R9 295X2 from the inside out, boards will comes tethered to a liquid cooling system designed by Asetek.
The board we checked out was light enough in hand, and the whole set-up - hoses, fan and board - didn't feel unwieldy or get tangled when we fiddled with it.
Finally, Maingear is set to release a gaming rig housing two R9 295X2s on April 21, though other details, such as price, are unknown.
The Radeon R9 295X2 will be available globally the week of April 21 from AMD's AiB partners. It will retail for US$1,499 (about AU$1,617).
