AMD’s flagship R9 390X graphics card powered by the next generation Fiji XT GPU will be shipping with a Cooler Master liquid cooler.  That’s right, today we’re bringing you an exclusive news update of AMD’s hotly anticipated next generation top dog graphics card.

There has been a whirlwind of speculation, rumor and leaks about AMD’s new Fiji XT based R9 390X flagship. And as we draw nearer to its final date of introduction we are able to chip away at the fact and at the fiction and sort them out one at a time.

Finally we can confirm to you that the new graphics card will indeed ship with a Cooler Master closed loop liquid cooling unit. The specific model in question is a 120mm Asetek based design variation that Cooler Master had licensed and used before. The pre-filled water cooler is very similar to what AMD had already introduced with the R9 295X2 and the boxed retail version of the FX 9590.

AMD Fiji XT R9 390X Coming With Cooler Master Liquid Cooler

We’ve reported earlier on Asetek’s largest design win with an “undisclosed OEM” for desktop graphics products that will begin shipping in the first half of 2015. The design win is estimated to result in 2-4 million dollars in revenue for Asetek. Which would translate to selling between 50 to 100 thousands units. It was clear from the get-go that this “undisclosed OEM” was AMD. Soon afterwards the R9 390X cooling shroud that would accommodate the Asetek liquid cooling design was leaked.

Let me briefly comment on this development in terms of Cooler Master’s involvement. AMD had introduced the R9 295X2 ,which is still the fastest graphics card in the world, back in April. It was the very first reference designed graphics card to ship with liquid cooling. AMD had partnered with Asetek which is one of the largest players in liquid cooling to develop Project Hydra. Which what ended up cooling the R9 295X2.

A couple of months later AMD re-introduced its 5Ghz FX 9590 processor into retail with a new package. The updated package included a liquid cooling unit from Cooler Master which was used to replace the previously shipped closed loop water cooler from Asetek. The new unit was slightly cooler and quieter than the Asetek water cooler it replaced. So even though Cooler Master had actually licensed the design from Asetek, this goes to show what an industry veteran that specializes in cooling like Cooler Master can achieve with a few intelligent tweaks.

AMD’s reference designed R9 390X will ship with a liquid cooler, however AMD’s AIB partners such as Sapphire, XFX, HIS, Powercolor, GIgabyte, MSI and Asus may ship non-reference air cooled designs as well. But for it to make sense for the AIBs their designs will have to offer real advantages to users. Which is going to be very difficult to achieve considering that they’re going up against an extremely effective cooling system as is evidenced by the R9 295X2. Needless to say, the reference design will allow for extraordinary overclocking potential.

Back to the question of “when ?”, the shipping data indicates that the card will be retail ready within four to six weeks. This puts its market introduction at the late March early April time-frame, just as we had told you three weeks ago. However make no mistake, just within a couple of weeks time AMD will be capable of demoing the new GPU. And the shipping data indicates that AMD has enough in inventory to make this a possibility.

We’ve told you yesterday that AMD has something “Crazy” they’re working on for GDC. And it may or may not involve a preview of the R9 390X but at this point it’s certainly a realistic possibility. After all only a few days ago we learned that AMD is “putting the finishing touches” on the R9 300 series.

Let’s quickly remind ourselves of the alleged specifications for the R9 390X. Also you can check out our in-depth coverage of the new memory technology which will be featured in the R9 390X. Dubbed HBM, short for High Bandwidth Memory, it promises to be 9 times faster than GDDR5 per package while using significantly less power.

* Conservative estimate based on SP count and clock speed. Any architectural or clock speed improvements would result in a higher figure.

Based on these alleged specifications we can make preliminary conclusions about performance. Although please keep in mind that I’ve only taken into account performance scaling based on the SP count. So these estimations do not take into account any possible architectural improvements or the new stacked memory sub-system. Assumed clock speed for the R9 390X is 1020Mhz based on what we’ve seen from the R9 295X. Although I’d expect the card will feature even higher clock speeds considering the huge thermal headroom enabled by the liquid cooling system.

Note : these estimations are based on the latest accumulative Radeon and GeForce game benchmarks from TPU.

Read more: http://wccftech.com/amd-fiji-xt-r9-390x-cooler-master-liquid/#ixzz3RqkLflVU

Oh yeah, And AMD is utilizing that HBM within its next gen x86 and ARM APUs !!

Those designs will run circles even around a PS4 graphics wise - at a fraction or the same costs.

I bet Facebook and Amazon can't be happier at the moment... . And Microsoft too: as it will at least provide the Gaming OS for Facebook

Interesting. I hope that will prompt Nvidia to hurry up with Big Maxwell.

Though I hate the cherry picked comparison charts. I want to see proper benches. It's 2 generations too early for 4K anyway.

Wow! Looking good! I am very curious about the price since AMD is fairly good with their prices

My guess is around 650€ here. 980 is around 500-550€. Though that price will probably drop fast like always.

Not sure how I feel about this, does this mean the card will be as hot as the R9 290X?It isn't easy having those in CF.I hope manufactures do a good job cooling the card.

No, it will use about the same power (~300W), but because it will come with an AIO cooler, it will be much, much cooler than a 290X.

The downside of that is that to run two in XFire you'll need a case big enough to fit them and their coolers.

Has AMD ever launched a single GPU for more than 599 €?

I know the chip will be big and the AIO cooler expensive, but given that the 295X2 is available for 700 € I don't see AMD pricing it close to that.

OT: AMD's CEO said no new products until Q2, so I'd bet on April at the earliest and not March to see the launch of the cards. But I hope the "crazy" thing at GDC is a life demonstration of the new cards power.

The 295X2 launched at about 1300€ and dropped fast. Due to the cooling and the projected clear power difference between it and the 980 I expect them to position it comfortably above the 980 price range. Also I'm expecting the 390X to not be far behind the 295X2 in performance so it would fit.

We'll see.

But it would be a first for AMD and, if they follow this path just like Nvidia, the ones who will suffer will be our wallets.

I still expect it to be 599 €, tho. A bit above the 980 to make it note that it's a better GPU but cheaper enough to give Nvidia a hard time pricing the Titan II/980Ti or whatever they call it.

I don't think anything AMD does will give Nvidia a hard time. Even if Big Maxwell is weaker than this it will still not be priced below 800€.

I just hope that it will prompt Nvidia to roll out the full Big Maxwell earlier and not pull a shit like half baked Titan and then the full 780ti.