AMD launches Radeon R9 380X this spring

Nvidia has a nearly one-year lead with the architecture Maxwell and quietly competitor AMD is working on an answer. Since two engineers chose to shine with their credentials on Linkedin, several details about the next flagship have been revealed, but when the launch can take place has so far been shrouded in obscurity.

Now SweClockers can reveal that AMD’s next top-class graphics card, which is expected to go by the name Radeon R9 380X, will be launched in the second quarter of this year. This means sometime in April – June, probably somewhat later in the period and in connection with the electronics fair Computex 2015 in Taiwan.

Furthermore, unconfirmed information is circulating that the Radeon R9 380X will be the first in the world with stacked memories (2.5D interposer stacking), where the memory circuits are located next to the graphics processor on the same substrate. Above all, this will make communication between both parts more efficient, in order to provide both higher energy efficiency and significantly higher bandwidth than is possible with GDDR5.

The new memory type is provided by Hynix and goes by the name High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). While the memory circuits are only expected to be clocked at 1.0 or 1.25 GHz, it can be accompanied by a bus width of 4,096 bits, which would provide a memory bandwidth of a breathtaking 512 and 640 GB / s, respectively.

Another interesting detail is that the graphics card can have a power consumption of as much as 300 W and thus balance on the limit of the PCI Express specification’s maximum allowable power outlets. This information is reinforced by previous rumors that AMD will equip the next flagship with a closed water cooling system, similar to the company’s Radeon R9 295X2 with dual graphics processors.

In conclusion, previous rumors claim that the graphics processor housed in the R9 380X can get 4,096 stream processors in up to 1,000 MHz. This means a maximum theoretical computing power of 45 percent over today’s flagship R9 290X, but how the new memory may affect performance is another mystery.