AMD Radeon Rx 200 series

AMD Radeon R9/R7/R5 200 Series

Release date	Announced: September 25, 2013 Released: October 8, 2013
Codename	Southern Islands Sea Islands Volcanic Islands
Cards
Entry-level	Radeon R5 210 Radeon R5 220 Radeon R5 230 Radeon R5 235 Radeon R5 235X
Mid-range	Radeon R7 240 Radeon R7 250 Radeon R7 250X Radeon R7 260 Radeon R7 260X Radeon R7 265
High-end	Radeon R9 270 Radeon R9 270X Radeon R9 280 Radeon R9 280X Radeon R9 285
Enthusiast	Radeon R9 290 Radeon R9 290X Radeon R9 295X2
Rendering support
Direct3D	Direct3D 12.0 Shader Model 5.0 (GCN only)
OpenCL	OpenCL 1.2 in official drivers. OpenCL 2.0/2.1 in beta drivers[1]
OpenGL	OpenGL 4.5[2]
Mantle	Vulkan 1.0
History
Predecessor	Radeon HD 7000 Series Radeon HD 8000 Series
Successor	AMD Radeon Rx 300 Series

The Rx 200 series is a family of GPUs developed by AMD. A "preview" was seen on September 25, 2013.^[3][4][5] These GPUs are manufactured on a 28 nm Gate-Last process through TSMC or Common Platform Alliance.^[6]

Release

The Rx 200 series was announced on September 25, 2013, at the AMD GPU14 Tech Day event.^[7] Non-disclosure agreements were lifted on October 15, except for the R9 290X, and pre-orders opened on October 3.^[8]

Architecture

This article is about all products under the AMD Radeon Rx 200 Series brand.

• A GPU implementing Graphics Core Next 3 (Volcanic Islands) is found on the R9 285 (Tonga Pro) branded products.
• A GPU implementing Graphics Core Next 2 (Sea Islands) is found on R7 260 (Bonaire), R7 260X (Bonaire XTX), R9 290 (Hawaii Pro), R9 290X (Hawaii XT), and R9 295X2 (Vesuvius) branded products.
• A GPU implementing Graphics Core Next 1 (Southern Islands) is found on R9 270, 270X, 280, 280X, R7 240, 250, 250X, 265, and R5 240 branded products.
• A GPU implementing TeraScale 2 (VLIW5) (Northern Islands or Evergreen) is found on R5 235X and "below" branded products.

Multi-monitor support

The AMD Eyefinity-branded on-die display controllers were introduced in September 2009 in the Radeon HD 5000 Series and have been present in all products since.^[9]

AMD TrueAudio

AMD TrueAudio was introduced with the AMD Radeon Rx 200 Series, but can only be found on the dies of GCN 1.1/1.2 products.

Video acceleration

AMD's SIP core for video acceleration, Unified Video Decoder and Video Coding Engine, are found on all GPUs and supported by AMD Catalyst and by the free and open-source graphics device driver.

Use in cryptocurrency mining

Radeon GPUs once performed better in cryptocurrency mining than their Nvidia GeForce counterparts. This led to limited supply and huge price increases in Q4 of 2013 and Q1 of 2014.^[10][11] Since Q2 of 2014 availability of AMD GPUs as well as pricing has, in most cases, returned to normal.

CrossFire Compatibility

Because many of the products in the range are rebadged versions of Radeon HD products, they remain compatible with the original versions when used in CrossFire mode. For example, the Radeon HD 7770 and Radeon R7 250X both use the 'Cape Verde XT' chip so have identical specifications and will work in CrossFire mode. This provides a useful upgrade option for anyone who owns an existing Radeon HD card and has a CrossFire compatible motherboard.

Desktop products

Radeon R9 295X2

The Radeon R9 295X2 was released on April 21, 2014. It is a dual GPU card. Press samples were shipped in a metal case. It is the first reference card to utilize a closed looped liquid cooler.^[12][13] At 11.5 teraflops of computing power, this is currently the most powerful dual-gpu consumer-oriented card in the world. It is essentially a combination of two (2) R9 290X Hawai'i GPUs on a single card.^[12]

Radeon R9 290X

A R9 290X by Sapphire

The Radeon R9 290X, codename "Hawaii XT", was released on October 24, 2013 and features 2816 Stream Processors, 176 TMUs, 64 ROPs, 512-bit wide buses, 44 CUs (compute units) and 8 ACE units. The R9 290X had a launch price of $549.

Radeon R9 290

The Radeon R9 290 and R9 290X were announced on September 25, 2013.^[14][15] The R9 290 is based on AMD's Hawaii Pro chip and R9 290X on Hawaii XT. R9 290 and R9 290X will support AMD TrueAudio, Mantle, Direct3D 11.2, and bridge-free Crossfire technology using XDMA. A limited "Battlefield 4 Edition" pre-order bundle of R9 290X that includes Battlefield 4 was available on October 3, 2013, with reported quantity being 8,000. The R9 290 had a launch price of $399.

Radeon R9 285

The Radeon R9 285 was announced on August 23, 2014 at AMD's 30 years of graphics celebration and released September 2, 2014. It was the first card to feature AMD's GCN 1.2 microarchitecture, in the form of a Tonga-series GPU.

Radeon R9 280X

Radeon R9 280X was announced on September 25, 2013. With a launch price of $299, it is based on the Tahiti XTL chip, being a slightly upgraded, rebranded Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition.

Radeon R9 280

Radeon R9 280 was announced on March 4, 2014. With a launch MSRP set at $279, it is based on a rebranded Radeon HD 7950 with an increased clock speed, from 725Mhz to 900Mhz.^[16]

Radeon R9 270X

Radeon R9 270X was announced on September 25, 2013. With a launch price of $199, it is based on the Curaçao XT chip, which was formerly called Pitcairn.^[17] It is speculated to be faster than a Radeon HD 7870 GHz edition. Radeon R9 270 has a launch price of $179.

Radeon R7 260X

Radeon R7 260X was announced on September 25, 2013. With a launch price of $139, it is based on the Bonaire XTX chip, a faster iteration of Bonaire XT that the Radeon HD 7790 is based on. It will have 2 GB of GDDR5 memory as standard and will also feature TrueAudio, on-chip audio DSP based on Tensilica HiFi EP architecture. The stock card features a boost clock of 1100Mhz. It has 2 Gbs of GDDR5 memory with a 6.5Ghz memory clock over a 128-bit Interface. The 260X will draw around 115W in typical use.^[18][19]

Radeon R7 250

Radeon R7 250 was announced on September 25, 2013. It has a launch price of $89.^[18] The card is based on the Oland core with 384 GCN cores. In February 10, 2014, AMD announced the R7 250X which is based on the Cape Verde GPU with 640 GCN cores and an MSRP of $99.^[20]

Mobile products

Chipset table

¹ Unified Shaders : Texture Mapping Units : Render Output Units
² Pixel fillrate is calculated as the number of ROPs multiplied by the base core clock speed.
³ Texture fillrate is calculated as the number of TMUs multiplied by the base core clock speed.
⁴ Single precision performance is calculated as two times the number of shaders multiplied by the base core clock speed.
⁵ Double precision performance of Hawaii is 1/8 of single precision performance,^[21] Tahiti is 1/4 of single precision performance, others 28 nm chip is 1/16 of single precision performance.
⁶ Base clock of R9 290 and R9 290X will maintain at 947 MHz and 1000 MHz before reaching 95 °C, respectively.^[22]
7 The R9 285 utilizes loss-less colour compression which can increase effective memory bandwidth (relative to GCN 1.0 and 1.1 cards) in certain situations.^[23][24]

Model	Launch	Codename	Architecture	Fab (nm)	Transistors (Million)	Die Size (mm^2)	Bus interface	Clock rate			Config core^1	Fillrate		Memory				Processing Power GFLOPS		TDP (W)		API support (version)				TrueAudio	Release Price (USD)
								Core (MHz)	Boost (MHz)	Memory (MHz)		Pixel (GP/s)^2	Texture (GT/s)^3	Size (MiB)	Bus width (bit)	Bus type	Bandwidth (GB/s)	Single Precision^4	Double Precision^5	Idle	Max.	DirectX	OpenGL	OpenCL	Mantle
Radeon R5 210 (OEM)	Unknown	Cedar	Terascale 2	40	292	59	PCIe 2.0 ×16	400	Unknown	450 (Effective 900)	80:8:4	1.6	3.2	256	64	DDR3	7.2	64	No	Unknown	19	11.0	4.1	1.2	No	No	Unknown
Radeon R5 220 (OEM)	Unknown	Caicos PRO-L	Terascale 2	40	370	67	PCIe 2.0 ×16	625	650	533 (Effective 1066)	160:8:4	2.5	5	1024	64	DDR3	8.53	200	No	Unknown	18	11.0[25]	3.2[25]	1.2	No	No	Unknown
Radeon R5 230	Apr 3, 2014[26]	Caicos	Terascale 2	40	370	67	PCIe 2.0 ×16	625[27]	N/A	533 (Effective 1066)	160:8:4	2.5	5	1024 2048	64	DDR3	8.53	200	No	Unknown	19[28]	11.0[29]	4.1[29]	1.2	No	No	Unknown
Radeon R5 235 (OEM)	Unknown	Caicos XT	Terascale 2	40	370	67	PCIe 2.0 ×16	775	Unknown	900 (Effective 1800)	160:8:4	3.1	6.2	1024	64	DDR3	14.4	248	No	Unknown	35	11.0[25]	4.1[25]	1.2	No	No	Unknown
Radeon R5 235X (OEM)	Unknown	Caicos XT	Terascale 2	40	370	67	PCIe 2.1 ×16	875	Unknown	900 (Effective 1800)	160:8:4	3.5	7.0	1024	64	DDR3	14.4	280	No	Unknown	18	11.0[25]	4.1[25]	1.2	No	No	Unknown
Radeon R5 240 (OEM)	Nov 1st, 2013	Oland	GCN 1.0	28	1040	90	PCIe 3.0 ×8	730	780	900 (Effective 1800) ?	320:20:8	5.84	14.6	1024 2048	128	DDR3 GDDR5	28.8 ?	467.2	Unknown	Unknown	50	12.0 (11_1)[25]	4.5[25]	2.0	Yes	No	Unknown
Radeon R7 240	Oct 8, 2013	Oland PRO	GCN 1.0	28	1040	90	PCIe 3.0 ×8	730	780	900 (Effective 1800) 1125 (Effective 4500)	320:20:8	5.84	14.6	2048	128	DDR3 GDDR5	28.8 72	467.2 499.2	29.2	Unknown	30	12.0 (11_1)[30]	4.5[30]	2.0[31]	Yes[32]	No	$69
Radeon R7 250	Oct 8, 2013	Oland XT	GCN 1.0	28	1040	90	PCIe 3.0 ×8	1000	1050	1150 (Effective 4600)	384:24:8	8	24	1024 2048	128	DDR3 GDDR5	73.6	768 806.4	48	Unknown	75	12.0 (11_1)[30]	4.5[30]	2.0	Yes	No	$89
Radeon R7 250X	Feb 10, 2014	Cape Verde XT	GCN 1.0	28	1500	123	PCIe 3.0 ×16	1000	N/A	1125 (Effective 4500)	640:40:16	16	40	1024 2048	128	GDDR5	72	1280	80	Unknown	95	12.0 (12_0)[30]	4.5[30]	2.0	Yes	No	$99
Radeon R7 260	Dec 17, 2013	Bonaire	GCN 1.1	28	2080	160	PCIe 3.0 ×16	1000	N/A	1500 (Effective 6000)	768:48:16	16	48	1024	128	GDDR5	96	1536	96	Unknown	95	12.0 (12_0)[30]	4.5[30]	2.0	Yes	Yes[33]	$109
Radeon R7 260X	Oct 8, 2013	Bonaire XTX	GCN 1.1	28	2080	160	PCIe 3.0 ×16	1100	N/A	1625 (Effective 6500)	896:56:16	17.6	61.6	1024 2048	128	GDDR5	104	1971.2	123.2	Unknown	115	12.0 (12_0)[30]	4.5[30]	2.0	Yes	Yes[34]	$139
Radeon R7 265	Mar 5, 2014	Curaçao PRO	GCN 1.0	28	2800	212	PCIe 3.0 ×16	900	925	1400 (Effective 5600)	1024:64:32	28.8	57.6	2048	256	GDDR5	179.2	1843.2	115.2	Unknown	150	12.0 (11_1)[30]	4.5[30]	2.0	Yes	No	$149
Radeon R9 270	Nov 13, 2013	Curaçao PRO	GCN 1.0	28	2800	212	PCIe 3.0 ×16	900	925	1400 (Effective 5600)	1280:80:32	28.8	72	2048	256	GDDR5	179.2	2304 2368	144 148	Unknown	150	12.0 (11_1)[35]	4.5[35]	2.0	Yes	No	$179
Radeon R9 270X	Oct 8, 2013	Curaçao XT	GCN 1.0	28	2800	212	PCIe 3.0 ×16	1000	1050	1400 (Effective 5600)	1280:80:32	32	80	2048 4096	256	GDDR5	179.2	2560 2688	160 168	Unknown	180	12.0 (11_1)[35]	4.5[35]	2.0	Yes	No	$199
Radeon R9 280	Mar 4, 2014	Tahiti PRO3	GCN 1.0	28	4313	352	PCIe 3.0 ×16	827	933	1250 (Effective 5000)	1792:112:32	26.5	92.6	3072	384	GDDR5	240	2964 3343.9	741 836	Unknown	250[36]	12.0 (11_1)[35]	4.5[35]	2.0	Yes	No	$249
Radeon R9 280X	Oct 8, 2013	Tahiti XT2 Tahiti XTL[37]	GCN 1.0	28	4313	352	PCIe 3.0 ×16	850	1000	1500 (Effective 6000)	2048:128:32	27.2	109	3072	384	GDDR5	288	3481.6 4096	870.4 1024	Unknown	250	12.0 (11_1)[35]	4.5[35]	2.0	Yes	No	$299
Radeon R9 285	Sep 2, 2014	Tonga PRO	GCN 1.2	28	5000[24]	359[24]	PCIe 3.0 ×16	up to 918[38]	N/A	1375 (Effective 5500)	1792:112:32	29.4	102.8	2048	256	GDDR5	176	3290	205.6[39]	Unknown	190	12.0 (12_0)[35]	4.5[35]	2.0	Yes	Yes	$249
Radeon R9 290	Nov 5, 2013	Hawaii PRO	GCN 1.1	28	6200[40]	438	PCIe 3.0 ×16	up to 947^6	N/A	1250 (Effective 5000)	2560:160:64	60.608	151.52	4096	512	GDDR5	320	4848.6	606.1	Unknown	275	12.0 (12_0)[35]	4.5[35]	2.0	Yes	Yes	$399
Radeon R9 290X	Oct 24, 2013	Hawaii XT	GCN 1.1	28	6200[40]	438	PCIe 3.0 ×16	up to 1000^6	N/A	1250 (Effective 5000)	2816:176:64	64	176	4096	512	GDDR5	320	5632	704	Unknown	290	12.0 (12_0)[35]	4.5[35]	2.0	Yes	Yes	$549
Radeon R9 295X2[41]	Apr 8, 2014	Vesuvius	GCN 1.1	28	2× 6200	2× 438	PCIe 3.0 ×16	1018	N/A	1250 (Effective 5000)	2× 2816:176:64	2× 65.152	2× 179.168	2× 4096	2× 512	GDDR5	2× 320	11466.752	1433.344	Unknown	500	12.0 (12_0)[35]	4.5[35]	2.0	Yes	Yes	$1499
Model	Launch	Codename	Architecture	Fab (nm)	Transistors (Million)	Die Size (mm^2)	Bus interface	Clock rate			Config core^1	Fillrate		Memory				Processing Power GFLOPS		TDP (W)		API support (version)				True Audio	Release Price (USD)
								Core (MHz)	Boost (MHz)	Memory (MHz)		Pixel (GP/s)^2	Texture (GT/s)^3	Size (MiB)	Bus width (bit)	Bus type	Bandwidth (GB/s)	Single Precision^4	Double Precision^5	Idle	Max.	DirectX	OpenGL	OpenCL	Mantle

¹ Unified Shaders : Texture Mapping Units : Render Output Units
² Pixel fillrate is calculated as the number of ROPs multiplied by the base core clock speed.
³ Texture fillrate is calculated as the number of TMUs multiplied by the base core clock speed.
⁴ Single precision performance is calculated as two times the number of shaders multiplied by the base core clock speed.
⁵ Double precision performance of Hawaii is 1/8 of single precision performance,^[21] Tahiti is 1/4 of single precision performance, others 28 nm chip is 1/16 of single precision performance.
⁶ Base clock of R9 290 and R9 290X will maintain at 947 MHz and 1000 MHz before reaching 95 °C, respectively.^[22]
7 The R9 285 utilizes loss-less colour compression which can increase effective memory bandwidth (relative to GCN 1.0 and 1.1 cards) in certain situations.^[23][24]
8 The AMD OpenCL 2.0 driver is compatible with AMD graphics products based on GCN first generation products or higher. -> GCN 1.0+ ^[42]
9 OpenCL™ 2.0 conformance logs submitted (pending ratification) for: AMD Radeon HD 7790, AMD Radeon HD 8770, AMD Radeon HD 8500M/8600M/8700M/8800M/8900M Series, AMD Radeon R5 M240, AMD Radeon R7 200 Series, AMD Radeon R9 290, AMD Radeon R9 290X, A-Series AMD Radeon R4 Graphics, A-Series AMD Radeon R5 Graphics, A-Series AMD Radeon R6 Graphics, A-Series AMD Radeon R7 Graphics, AMD FirePro W5100, AMD FirePro W9100, AMD FirePro S9150 ^[43]

Graphics device drivers

AMD's proprietary graphics device driver "Catalyst"

AMD Catalyst is being developed for Microsoft Windows and Linux. As of July 2014, other operating system are not officially supported. This may be different for the AMD FirePro brand, which is based on identical hardware but features OpenGL-certified graphics device drivers.

AMD Catalyst supports of course all features advertised for the Radeon brand.

Free and open-source graphics device driver "Radeon"

The free and open-source drivers are primarily developed on Linux and for Linux, but have been ported to other operating systems as well. Each driver is composed out of five parts:

1. Linux kernel component DRM
2. Linux kernel component KMS driver: basically the device driver for the display controller
3. user-space component libDRM
4. user-space component in Mesa 3D;
5. a special and distinct 2D graphics device driver for X.Org Server, which if finally about to be replaced by Glamor

The free and open-source "Radeon" graphics driver supports most of the features implemented into the Radeon line of GPUs.^[44] Unlike the nouveau project for Nvidia graphics cards, the open-source "Radeon" drivers are not reverse engineered, but based on documentation released by AMD.^[45]

See also

• AMD FirePro
• AMD FireMV
• AMD FireStream

References

1. "AMD OpenCL™ 2.0 Driver". amd.com.
2. http://www.techpowerup.com/200081/amd-catalyst-14-4-rc-available-for-download.html Full support for OpenGL 4.4
3. Iyer, Tarun (July 4, 2013). "Report: AMD's Volcanic Islands GPUs Launching in October Without HD 8000 Branding". tomshardware.com. tom's Hardware. Retrieved October 8, 2013.
4. "AMD's Next Generation Volcanic Islands GPUs Possibly Launching in October - May Not Be Branded As HD 8000 Series". WCCFtech.
5. Niels Broekhuijsen. "AMD Updates 2014-2015 Product Roadmap [UPDATED]". Tom's Hardware.
6. "AMD Launches Next Generation Volcanic Islands (VI) GPUs in 2014 - Successor to Sea Islands". WCCFtech.
7. Ryan Smith. "AMD Announces Next Generation Radeon R7 and R9 Video Cards". anandtech.com.
8. Sebastian Pop (30 September 2013). "Launch Date Revealed for AMD Radeon R9 290X Hawaii Graphics Card". softpedia.
9. "AMD Eyefinity: FAQ". AMD. 2011-05-17. Retrieved 2014-07-02.
10. Ryan Smith. "Radeon R9 290X Retail Prices Hit $900". anandtech.com.
11. "AMD graphics card pricing skyrockets due to cryptocurrency mining, could kill AMD’s gaming efforts". ExtremeTech.
12. AMD Radeon R9 Series Graphics
13. Ryan Smith. "Meet the Radeon R9 295X2: Cooling & Power Delivery - The AMD Radeon R9 295X2 Review". anandtech.com.
14. "What to expect from GPU14 event in Hawaii". Retrieved 25 September 2013.
15. "AMD GPU Lineup Announced: R9 and R7 Series". pcper.com.
16. Ryan Smith. "AMD Announces Radeon R9 280: Radeon HD 7950 w/Boost Returns". anandtech.com.
17. Woligroski, Don. "AMD Radeon R9 270 Review: Replacing The Radeon HD 7800s". TomsHardware.com. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
18. "AMD Releases R7 Series Graphics Cards With AMD Radeon R7 240, AMD Radeon R7 250 and AMD Radeon R7 260X GPUs". Advanced Micro Devices. Retrieved 29 November 2013.
19. Ung, Gordon Mah (8 October 2013). "Everything You Wanted to Know About AMD’s New TrueAudio Technology". maximumpc. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
20. Ryan Smith. "AMD Announces Radeon R7 250X; Shipping Today". anandtech.com.
21. Radeon R9 290X Review AMD's Back In Ultra-High-End Gaming - Hawaii A 6.2 Billion Transistor GPU For Gaming "We've also come to learn that AMD changed the double-precision rate from 1/4 to 1/8 on the R9 290X, yielding a maximum .7 TFLOPS. The FirePro version of this configuration will support full-speed (1/2 rate) DP compute, giving professional users an incentive to spring for Hawaii's professional implementation."
22. Chris Angelini. "AMD Radeon R9 290 Review: Fast And $400, But Is It Consistent?". Tom's Hardware.
23. "AMD Radeon R9 285 review: The GCN 1.2 torpedo that takes out Nvidia’s GTX 760". ExtremeTech.
24. "Review: Sapphire Radeon R9 285 Dual-X OC (28nm Tonga)". hexus.net.
25. "AMD Radeon™ R5 Series Graphics". amd.com.
26. "AMD Launches Radeon R5 230 in the Retail Channel, Gigabyte Outs its Offering". TechPowerUp.
27. "R5". amd.com.
28. "AMD Launches Radeon R5 230 For Retail Market". cpu-world.com.
29. "R5". amd.com.
30. "AMD Radeon™ R7 300 Series Graphics". amd.com.
31. Article Number:, RN-WINLIN-OPENCL2-14.41. "AMD OpenCL 2.0 Driver". http://support.amd.com. AMD Technical Support. Retrieved 18 February 2015. External link in |website= (help)
32. Ryan Smith. "Understanding AMD’s Mantle: A Low-Level Graphics API For GCN". anandtech.com.
33. "AMD Radeon R7 260 1GB Video Card Review - Legit Reviews". Legit Reviews.
34. Chris Angelini. "R7 260X: TrueAudio’s First Outing On The Back Of Bonaire". Tom's Hardware.
35. "AMD Radeon™ R9 Series Graphics". amd.com.
36. Ryan Smith. "AMD Radeon R9 285 Review: Feat. Sapphire R9 285 Dual-X OC". anandtech.com.
37. "AMD Preparing Tahiti XTL Revision of Radeon R9 280X Graphic Card For November Release". WCCFtech.
38. "AMD Radeon™ R9 Series Graphics". amd.com.
39. Ryan Smith. "Compute - AMD Radeon R9 285 Review: Feat. Sapphire R9 285 Dual-X OC". anandtech.com.
40. Ryan Smith. "The AMD Radeon R9 290X Review". anandtech.com.
41. "AMD Radeon R9 295 X2: final specs out, card may not fit into all PCs". KitGuru.
42. http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/OpenCL2-Driver.aspx
43. http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/opencl-zone/amd-accelerated-parallel-processing-app-sdk/system-requirements-driver-compatibility/
44. "RadeonFeature". Xorg.freedesktop.org. Retrieved 2014-07-06.
45. "AMD Developer Guides".

External links

• TechPowerUp! GPU Database
• AMD Radeon R9 Series Graphics
• AMD Radeon R7 Series Graphics
• GPU14 Tech Day Public Presentation.pdf
• AMD Announces FirePro W9100