AMD Radeon R7 265 Review: Curaçao Slides In At $150

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bench marks are useless if we cant even buy one of these. Damn miners, i hope they make asics soon, or I'm just going to end up getting a Geforce. This is getting to be ridiculous for a GPU.
 

Since Maxwell has much better hashes-per-watt performance than AMD's current stuff and Nvidia's own previous GPUs around the $150 price point, it could be a popular choice for Scrypt miners since power is a large part of long-term mining costs.

Since Scrypt mining is heavily dependent on RAM bandwidth and latency, ASIC mining is not going to be quite as advantageous unless they put large SRAMs in the chips so GPU mining should remain viable for a lot longer than BitCoin - RAM bandwidth and latency are much more difficult to scale up in performance than the raw processing power BitCoin required. ASIC mining on Scrypt will be mainly limited to how many pins can be cost-effectively fitted on a chip to connect to DRAM dies and how fast those DRAMs can go - same reason mainstream GPUs (~$150) and CPUs have been "stuck" at 128bits for the past ~15 years.
 


Interesting, HOWEVER, bold part, WUT?

LOL I am pretty sure than 256bit has been cost effective for a while. But cutting cost is what tech companies do best. 😛
 

Around 15 years ago, $150 bought be a Rage128 card. In 2014, $150 still only buys me a 128bits graphics card - albeit a ~1000X more powerful one.

I couldn't find sales volume breakdown beyond AMD vs Nvidia vs Others but I have a hunch $150 is a popular cut-off point for moderate gamers: if there was no interest in sub-$150 GPUs, there wouldn't be so many more sub-$150 models on the market than $150+ ones. On Newegg.com, I'm seeing 387 GPUs listed under $150 vs 231 over so I am reasonably confident in saying the median GPU sale is under $150.

While 256bits may have delivered a cost-effective performance boost for the extra cost in the past, the R7-265 is the first 256bits GPU to launch at a truly mainstream-friendly $150. (At least until miners take them away.)
 

I think the operative word was "mainstream." You've had 256-bit cards for a while, but I don't know I'd call any of them mainstream. I rather liked this article talking about the great budget boards of the past. The 256 cards here usually launched between $200 and $250. And few of these cards were the ones casual gamers grabbed just for Civ, Sim City, or WoW.

The people spending ~$200 are the ones that play the more demanding games, or want a little extra eye-candy but can't justify to themselves paying $300+. I'm in this crowd, so maybe I'm projecting myself onto that market segment. I think it's a step, maybe two, above mainstream.
 

Me neither. And I certainly wouldn't mind nabbing a 7970 for $230! I was hoping to grab a 7950 last year around $200, but I could never really pull the trigger and explain to my wife why it was necessary when my 6870 is still suitable for my needs.

If the mining craze dies and the 270X returns to normal prices I may grab one this year. Otherwise it looks like I'll wait for the Maxwell equivalent to the 760.
 


I picked up the MSI Gaming 270x just before Christmas for $200. I'd highly recommend that - the cooler is overkill for that card. With a custom fan profile,it will run on max all day and it maintains 70C and very quiet. What sound it does make is a good quality due to the larger fans.
 

It depends for what.

The R7-265 has nearly twice as much raw RAM bandwidth which allows it to push through more bandwidth-intensive scenes while the 750Ti has more raw processing power for more compute-intensive scenes.

The R7-265 fares better at Scrypt mining while the 750Ti consumes around 60% less power.

If I had to choose between the two at $150 right now, I would be tempted to go with the far more efficient 750Ti.
 


Okay Thanks! I think I'll go with the 750 ti because of the power consumption. 😀
 
I actually really like this card. The r7 265 in all benchmarks performs right at the same level as the GTX 660 maybe 1 or 2% less. But the GTX 660 sells for at least $40 more. So for a gaming rig on a budget it a great card!
 
I am very impressed with the $150 / £89.54 R7 265. AMD really did a great job with this series, Last Series the 600 and 7000, Nvidia had AMD beat in price performance, And Nvidia had a perfect price tag in the GTX 650 Ti $119 / £71.02, But this time around AMD takes the crown and then some. The GTX 750 Ti priced at $150 / £89.54 is way too high for a card with it's performance, They should have priced it the same as the 650 Ti, And I have no idea why they didn't. Nvidia is really making a big mistake with their pricing. Who is going to pay $119 / £71.02 for a GTX 750 Ti? It is basically a 650 Ti with a lower power state and better efficiency, And then you have the R7 265 for $119 / £71.02 that has the same performance as the GTX 660, The decision should be a no-brainer. Unless for some reason you want much less performance for the same price. I do understand the convenience of the 750 Ti not needing a 6 pin power plug, and using under 100watts, But that still does not justify overpricing a under-performing card. I myself almost bought a R7 265, It was a Power Color brand on sale for $145.99, But then I saw HIS R9 270 iPower IceQ X² Boost for $179.99 on the same site. So I bought it instead. I figured why not. And let me tell you it is a wonderful performing card.
 
I can't understand why anyone would worry so much about a GPU using over 100 watts. First of all any decent 500 watt PSU can handle a i5 and a GPU that uses 200 watts. Honestly the 750 Ti is a decent card, But to put it up against the R7 265 is a joke. And Nvidia really needs to rethink the pricing on the 750 Ti. I am not willing to pay more money for a GPU with low performance just simply because it uses under 100 watts, That is insanity! Honestly people wanting the 750/750 Ti are really better off buying the R7 260X or the R7 265. Now that the 260X drivers have matured it now passes up the 750 Ti in performance, And you can get a 260x for a much lower price. And for the same price you can get the R7 265 that performs better than the old 650 Ti Boost and performs the same as the GTX 660. Why on earth would you miss out on that much more performance just because of a few more watts. If you got a crap power supply you don't deserve to be using a gaming rig anyway. You should always make sure you have a good PSU in your system, That is the most important part because it can ruin everything if it fails.
 


Perhaps but what you are failing to realize is that a large portion of the PC buyers buy OEM prebuilt systems that are shipped with at best 350W cheap PSUs (more often 150-300W) and those millions of users are looking for an option that is simply plug and play to upgrade the GPUs in their systems. And those systems usually have plenty of CPU power but are underpowered if using the Onboard GPU solution on either their MOBO or the CPU chip itself. Those systems do not have the excess overhead to add a GPU card that uses 200W without becoming unstable -- so they either buy a new PSU also, which costs more money (and is more difficult to install for those that would buy a prebuilt system in the first place) or they pay a bit more for Nvidias 750Ti which while more expensive than the Radeon equivelant but can actually run on their underpowered PSU that came with their system. (which allows Nvidia to charge a premium for the card at that power consumption level since the alternative equal performance card would require an investment in a new PSU as well so the net cost is the same.
 

In addition to what JD wrote above, I would add that some people also care far more about having a system that runs cool and quiet than performance per up-front buck.
 
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