Published in Graphics

MSI shows R9 290X Lightning at CES 2014

by on06 January 2014

Custom PCB and TriFrozr cooler

There have already been a couple of rumors as well as pictures showing that MSI is working on the R9 290X Lightning graphcis card and it appears that it was ready just in time to be showcased at Consumer Electronics Show 2014 in Las Vegas. Based on a custom design with AMD's flagship Hawaii XT GPU with 2816 Stream Processors, the new MSI R9 290X Lightning will certainly be a top pick for enthusiasts and overclockers.

Anandtech.com managed to score a couple of pictures of the new R9 290X Lighting as well as all other MSI graphics cards and we certainly hope that AMD-based ones will soon get back to its normal prices which rose due to holiday shopping season and the recent Litecoin craze.

As noted, the new R9 290X Lightning features AMD's Hawaii XT GPU with 2816 Stream Processors, 4GB of GDDR5 memory with 512-bit memory interface and although MSI still did not shed any light on the actual clocks of the new R9 290X Lightning, we are quite sure that we will see at least a decent factory-overclock and it is quite certain that it will feature a massive factory overclock, most thanks to its 8+8+6-pin PCI-Express power connector array.

Thanks to earlier leaked PCB shots, it is clear that MSI's R9 290X Lightning features 12+3+2-phase VRM design and needs 8+8+6-pin PCI-Express power connectors. It will also feature Pure Digital PWM and have on-board LEDs which will show the real-time power load.

The black/yellow TriFrozr triple-fan cooler with a bunch of heatpipes and a massive heatsink will certainly ensure that the Hawaii GPU is not throttled all the time.

Unfortunately, MSI did not shed any light regarding the actual price or the availability date of the new R9 290X Lightning graphics card.

You can check out more pictures over at Anandtech.com.

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Last modified on 07 January 2014
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