AMD has announced a new graphics card, the Radeon R9 280, based on the same Tahiti GPU as the older Radeon HD 7950. It operates a little faster, though, filling in the high-end R9 line-up.
The board features a total of 1792 stream processors, along with 112 TMUs and 32 ROPs. The GPU is now clocked at a frequency of up to 933 MHz.
Memory aboard the card remains set at 3 GB, and still runs over a 384-bit memory interface at an effective speed of 5.0 GT/s.
The R9 280's power needs are satisfied through a PCI Express x16 slot, along with eight- and six-pin auxiliary connectors. Despite the trimmed-back performance, this board bears the same 250 W TDP as the higher-end R9 280X. Cooling is taken care of by the same reference cooler as found on reference R9 280X cards, though we'll probably be seeing more cards with custom cooling solutions since AMD's solution is derided for being noisy.
Support is present for AMD's Mantle API, as well as DirectX 11.2 and OpenGL 4.3.
The card is set to come to shelves over the coming weeks with an MSRP price of $279. It remains to be seen whether AMD will be able to satisfy demand or hit its estimated price target. Both have been a problem for the company in recent months, and Radeon R9 270X cards are selling in the same range already.
