Although the R9 290X is getting all the press, the R9 290 is actually an even more attractive product for many consumers, as it’s priced at just $399 and still offers more than enough power for 1080p and even 1600p gaming.

The new BIOS is supposed to make it a tad faster, as it speeds up the fan. Since all currently available Hawaii cards feature the same stock cooler, pushing the fan speed up is practically the only way of unlocking more performance. Sapphire decided to bump the fan speed, which is currently capped at 47 percent. Needless to say, this will make the card quite a bit louder under load.

What we really want to see are custom Hawaii cards and the first batch should pop up soon, although AMD AIB partners aren’t saying much.