?This card isn't for everyone? is AMD's byline of choice when talking about their Radeon R9 295X2, code named Hydra. That may come off as ominous and slightly off-putting in some circles but it's a well-placed warning. There are only a few dedicated gamers who typically see the value in these ultra expensive, power hungry dual core graphics cards. The 295X2 takes things to another level, which may limit its appeal in certain cases but at the same time its unique design could open the door to broader acceptance.

To understand a bit more about the R9 295X2 and the decisions AMD made during its gestation, we?ve got to look back in time. The HD 4870X2, HD 6990 and HD 7990 were all excellent cards in their own right but were ultimately crippled by poor driver support, constant in-game stuttering and extremely loud fan profiles. With the more recent HD 7990, AMD overcame the first two issues months after launch but by that time it's luster had worn off and gamers had moved on to discussing the upcoming Hawaii architecture. The R9 295X2 hopes to do things differently with strong driver support from day one and an advanced cooling solution which is meant to drastically cut down its noise footprint.

With a pair of fully enabled Hawaii XT cores ?the one found in the hot running R9 290X- on a single PCB, the R9 295X2 makes no qualms about targeting a very narrow enthusiast subset. However, even with some advanced engineering backstopping already impressive technical specs, there are still some limitations AMD's engineers had to contend with. Due to PowerTune's updated algorithms reference R9 290X's tended to throttle their clock speeds back when trying to balance out thermal characteristics and performance. To overcome rampant heat production the R9 295X2 uses a water cooler which is a solution that's been bandied about for several generations now but is only seeing the light now.