AMD’s new R9 290x is taking direct aim at Nvidia’s Titan. While Nvidia’s flagship consumer GPU has been the pinnacle since its release in February, AMD says its R9 290x will “ridicule” the Titan in performance.

The Sunnyvale, California based company has struggled in recent years to compete with Nvidia in the PC market.They have secured insurance with the next-gen consoles each sporting an AMD manufactured GPU, but when it comes to raw, uncapped PC gaming, Nvidia has been king.

AMD plans to “definitely compete with the GTX 780 and Titan” by utilizing Mantel – a new method of bypassing DirectX 11 and speaking directly with the GPU, ultimately allowing for improved performance.

It was a single card. ^SL RT @alelo: @AMDRadeon @repi #BF4 on eyefinity shown at the GPU14 event, was it a single card or XFire R9 290x?

— AMD Radeon Graphics (@AMDRadeon) September 26, 2013

Here’s where Mantle potentially becomes a problem for AMD – nearly all developers utilize DirectX. There is no way in the near future all will abandon a tried and true product for something new, even if it is better. This will take time.

But in the meantime, if you’re a hardcore PC gamer and you want to play Battlefield 4 at its visual apex, you will need to strongly consider AMD’s R9 290x.