AMD officially announces Radeon R9 285 and new FX processors

During an event for the thirtieth anniversary of AMD GPUs, the chip developer announced the Radeon R9 285. The video card will have access to a Tonga GPU, which has been rumored for some time. In addition, AMD officially announced three new FX processors.

AMD’s latest GPU has 1792 stream processors, just like the Radeon R9 280 and the Radeon HD 7950, which have a ‘Tahiti’ GPU. On paper, the biggest difference with those video cards is the memory bus, which has been reduced from 384 bit to 256 bit. The maximum clock frequency is also slightly lower at 918MHz than the 933MHz that the R9 280 does. The gddr5 memory is a bit faster and reaches 5.5GHz. In terms of performance, the R9 285 would fall between the R9 270X and the R9 280X. AMD also appears to have addressed the consumption of the new GPU. Where the R9 280X has a tdp of 250 watts, the R9 285 consumes no more than 190 watts.

The thirtieth anniversary of AMD GPUs, which were called ATi before the acquisition in 2006, was also used to release three new FX processors. The specifications and prices of the FX-8370, FX-8370E and FX8320E were previously leaked, but AMD has now officially confirmed the arrival of the new processors. The ‘E’ addition indicates that it concerns extra economical CPUs with a TDP of 95 watts. The clock speeds are the same as the ‘non-E’ versions of the same processor, with the economical versions their turbo speed will last less long thanks to the tighter TDP budget.

Photos of the first R9 285 video card that deviates from the reference design have also appeared. During the event, AMD auctioned the first R9 285 to roll off the production line. The card comes from Asus and is equipped with an extra quiet ‘Strix’ cooler. AMD announced that all major video card makers will release a variant of the R9 285, with a suggested retail price of $249. From September 2, both the new FX processors and the R9 285 will be available.