What an Interesting Week

and I can't tell you about some of it. Seriously, some of the stuff from this past week I cannot talk about and some of it I will not talk about either. So, instead I will talk about the R9 290X, the recently released GPU from AMD. Seems fair, since I talked about nVidia stuff recently.
The 290X is AMD's new top-of-the-line GPU and features an all new core, with many advancements. Among these is the removal of the Crossfire bridge, for multi-GPU setups. Instead, all of the communication between two or more GPUs will be done through the PCIe slots. The slots offer considerably higher speed and bandwidth, so this is almost certainly a good move, even before taking into account it means there is one less thing to lose. It also has some other technology enhancements, such as allowing any combination of video outputs to drive Eyefinity. Previously you were limited in the number of DVI ports you could use at a time, but that has been dealt with apparently. Doesn't affect me, but is good to see. Along with the other GCN-based GPUs, the 290X also features Mantle support, a low-level API that will allow developers to directly access the power of the GPU, without having to go through DirectX or OpenGL or a similar tool. This could potentially open up a lot of performance through optimization.
Of course the really interesting aspect of the GPU is its power, and from the reviews I've seen, it is very interesting. It beats the GTX 780, nVidia's top-of-the-line graphics card priced $100 more than the 290X, in almost everything, and matches or beats the GTX Titan, nVidia's top-of-the-line GPU that costs $450 more than the 290X, in multiple tests as well. That is amazing for a $450 card (which means the GTX 780 is $550 and the Titan is $1000) and through driver improvements, it should only get better. Of course we can expect nVidia to respond, possibly with the GTX 780 Ti, but I suspect we'll be waiting for the next series of GPUs to see a real response. The 780 Ti may retake the performance crown, but my guess is that it will still be considerably more expensive than the 290X. Without knowing its performance, I can't guess at its price placement, but I think it is still a safe bet that we will see price cuts in the near future for the currently available cards.
Isn't competition great! Expect more of it in the coming year between the Red and Green teams! (Sadly that also means more fanboy flaming.)