Throwback Thursday – AMD Radeon R9 295X2 with dual “Hawaii” turns five years old

AMD took a strong position in the graphics card market when at the end of 2013 they released the Radeon R9 290X with the graphics circuit “Hawaii” under the hood. The model was at this time the fastest graphics card with a single graphics processor, but at the same time it could not assert itself in terms of performance against the company’s own “double boot” Radeon HD 7990 and the competitor Nvidia’s Geforce GTX 690.

► Read SweClocker’s review of the Radeon R9 295X2

Behind the scenes, however, AMD was working on something that would cement the company’s management in the graphics card market. Under the working name “Project Hydra”, the next generation of graphics cards with dual graphics processors took shape, where a duo of full-fledged circuits from the Hawaii family was used as a base to offer performance in the absolute top class.

Six months later, AMD was ready to showcase the results and launched the Radeon R9 295X2 – the world’s, at the time, fastest graphics card. Under the shell was found a dual set of the Hawaii XT graphics circuit from the Radeon R9 290X with 2,816 stream processors, which were connected via the company’s technology Crossfire. These are accompanied by a total of 8 GB of GDDR5 memory shared by the circuits.

While the Hawaii XT was a relatively energy-efficient graphics circuit, traditional air cooling was not enough when the circuit set was doubled on the same graphics card. AMD therefore had to turn to Danish Asetek to develop a closed water cooling solution for the Radeon R9 295X2. It transported away the heat generated from graphics circuits to an associated 120 mm radiator.

In addition to the heat development, power output was also somewhat in the way of AMD’s new flagship. The model had a specified TBP (Thermal Board Power) of as much as 500 W, which meant that the card far exceeded the PCI Express standard. Due to this, the company had to go out with clear instructions about what was required of the user’s power supply, which needed to be able to supply at least 28 A to each 8-pin connector that was connected to the card.

In summary, the Radeon R9 295X2, despite some backs, is a graphics card in the top tier with performance in abundance that deserves an award from SweClocker’s editorial staff. However, one should not forget that this is a model aimed at a narrow niche of enthusiasts who really know what they want and who can handle any problems along the way.

When the card passed SweClocker’s test lab in the spring of 2014, it was awarded the “Excellent Product” award and praised for its sky-high performance and efficient cooling solution. Among the disadvantages were a really juicy price tag of SEK 12,995 and general problems with AMD’s Crossfire technology, where the latter sometimes struggled with poor scaling and shaky rendering times.

This is how the Radeon R9 295X2 performs in 2019

As the Radeon R9 295X2 is a flagship with only five years on its neck, there is good potential to run a handful of performance tests in today’s games. We throw the card into SweClocker’s usual test system for graphics cards and select synthetic 3DMark as well as the games Battlefield 1, Far Cry 5 and Rise of the Tomb Raider as test objects.

In terms of the card’s relatively high theoretical computing power, this time we choose to use the higher resolution 2,560 × 1,440 pixels together with increased levels of detail. The drivers used are the latest available from AMD – Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.4.1.

Synthetic 3DMark and the Fire Strike subtest are a very good example where interconnected graphics circuits via the Crossfire technology work really well. The Radeon R9 295X2 performs here on a par with the Radeon RX Vega 64 and scales approximately twice against a single Radeon R9 290X.

Outside of synthetic performance tests, however, multi-graphics techniques such as Crossfire and SLI rarely scale brilliantly – at least when it comes to modern game titles. In Battlefield 1, the Radeon R9 295X2 takes a position between the Geforce RTX 2060 and the Radeon RX Vega 56. Compared to a lone Radeon R9 290X, AMD’s former flagship performs about 47 percent better.

When Destiny 2 refused to give any performance scaling with Crossfire, we had to replace that title with Far Cry 5. The Radeon R9 295X2 performs here on average slightly worse than a Geforce RTX 2060, but at the same time has problems with the flow in some sections – something that makes an impression in the minimum values. Compared to the Radeon R9 290X, AMD’s dual boot offers a 61 percent higher frame rate.

Last but not least, we have Rise of the Tomb Raider, which is also the game that scales best with Crossfire of the tested titles. The Radeon R9 295X2 performs here in the vicinity of the Radeon RX Vega 64 and offers just over 71 percent higher frame rate than a single Radeon R9 290X.

Summary thoughts on the Radeon R9 295X2 five years later

With the results from the performance measurements in hand, it is clear that the Radeon R9 295X2 still holds for gaming in 2,560 × 1,440 pixels with high detail settings. However, this is on the condition that the current game has proper support for the multi-graphics technology Crossfire, which unfortunately is not a matter of course at present.

In fact, the Crossfire brand was put on hold in connection with the launch of the Radeon RX Vega family, and although support for the technology remains, the pace of development has slowed down considerably recently. One reason for this is the partial transition to DirectX 12 in modern game titles, where the developers themselves are expected to add dedicated support for multiple graphics circuits.

While there has previously been a greater value in spending working hours implementing multi-graphics support in games, the actual installation base of users who use two or more graphics cards is now vanishingly small. For this reason, many developers choose to spend time on other things instead.

With all this said, however, a Radeon R9 295X2 is still on par with a Radeon R9 290X when only one graphics circuit is used, which means that it is still possible to play today’s games at a relatively high frame rate if the user can think of lowering the resolution a notch.

Were you one of those people who bought a Radeon R9 295X2? Feel free to share your memories and experiences in the comment thread of this article!