AMD Radeon R9 280X, R9 270X, And R7 260X: Old GPUs, New Names

[Mousemonkey]

The article was successful at ignoring the important part of this new product line. Mantle and the actual NEW chips. Nice headline, too. What's next an OriginPC article praising the value of a 10,000 computer...lol

The headline does suggest that the article is about the old GPU's so it would be a tad odd to find oneself reading about the new one(s) upon clicking the link.

 

[Mioracle]

I want to start with saying that English isn't my first language so I apologise if I missed something in the article or my grammar is bad.

I think there may be more like me out there who would like to know if the performance will be affected if you are running an old 7870 with 1GB of memory, together with a new 270X with 2GB or 4GB memory.

Ie. should one go for a 2nd hand 7870 with the same amount of memory or buy a new 270X with more memory and use it in CF with your old 7870?

At high resolutions 1080p, 1440p or with 2-3 monitors (Eyefinity), will games take advantage of the extra memory on the new card or will it only use 1GB on each card? Or might it even generate extra problems with rendering times due to different amount of memory cache on the cards?

Would be very nice if THW could make a small
survey/article on the subject.

 

[Mousemonkey]

I want to start with saying that English isn't my first language so I apologise if I missed something in the article or my grammar is bad.

I think there may be more like me out there who would like to know if the performance will be affected if you are running an old 7870 with 1GB of memory, together with a new 270X with 2GB or 4GB memory.

Ie. should one go for a 2nd hand 7870 with the same amount of memory or buy a new 270X with more memory and use it in CF with your old 7870?

At high resolutions 1080p, 1440p or with 2-3 monitors (Eyefinity), will games take advantage of the extra memory on the new card or will it only use 1GB on each card? Or might it even generate extra problems with rendering times due to different amount of memory cache on the cards?

Would be very nice if THW could make a small
survey/article on the subject.

It will be interesting to see if these cards will CF with their 7xxx series counterparts that's for sure.

 

[Novuake]

jbkeefer

And you were UNsuccessful in reading even the first few pages of the article.

 

[clonazepam]

This article was great. It's gotten me all excited to see what the price vs. performance is in mid-late 2014! =)

 

[slomo4sho]

It will be interesting to see if these cards will CF with their 7xxx series counterparts that's for sure.

The 280X does with the 7970. The 270X is a joke, anyone in their right mind should be picking up a 7950 instead of this overclocked 7870 that is priced at the same price point of existing factory overclocked 7870s. I assume this card will drop in price and the R9 280 (non-X) will eventually take the place of the 7950 at or around the GTX 760 price point.

At least Nvidia had price cuts with their 760 and 770 rebrands. The only real "cut" in AMDs lineup is the 280X and even then there have been factory overclocked 7970 models at the same price point for months now.

 

[Vladimir83]

So this article just proved my though about "Tahiti" GPUs.We are seeing at one of the most long lived GPU ever produced(without being re engineered).
Two years latter its still able to max out "all" games at 1080p,and 99% of the games at 1440p.Besides that its awesome overclock er,and was(is) better value against any nvidia product intended to counter it.
Even better as the game industry is as it is,hardly will be phased out in near future.

So "wanna be" AMD fans,stop whining around.We have "legendary" product in our hands!

 

[vertexx]

Please, 8760 is much easier to say, write, and remember than R7 260X. They should have held off until re-branding the whole Radeon series name to something better. This new convention is just confusing and awkward.

 

[Narcissistic_Martyr]

I'm looking forwards to seeing the R280X overclocked to 7970 GHz edition clock speeds to see if the update actually updated anything.

 

[Wisecracker]

I'm looking forwards to seeing the R280X overclocked to 7970 GHz edition clock speeds to see if the update actually updated anything.

See the Anandtech article.

It has both the HD 7970 and HD 7970GHz, along with Asus and XFX models ... plus overclocking.

The faster RAM speeds on the Asus version give a nice little boost.

 

[lp231]

AMD announcement is nothing but a failure as majority of their cards are rebadged, and technologies they introduced isn't new.
AMD True Audio... my Creative X-Fi sound card can do the same thing.
TressFX still needs work, when when patched, Lara Croft's hair still look unnatural. Nvidia PhysX does better hair, especially with Alice in Alice Madness returns.
You can take a look here: http://youtu.be/WpW6kPBnyQ4
If your planning on upgrading, then the 2 cards worth looking at is R9-290 and 290X. Don't bother with the rest.
Also that founder of GenAudio, the moment he walked on stage, I knew he will be talking nonsense. And I was right when he mentioned, our audio is based on "brain research". So does that mean other audio technologies don't do audio based on brain research, but on something else? hahaha!

 

[ojas]

Oooh Arma III finally. Thanks Chris!

Though a few words of warning: That game can be immensely tricky to benchmark (you'd probably know this, though!), and mainly CPU bound. I was very surprised the the GPUs showed any scaling at all.

Just make sure you're not facing the sea in any benchmark run (i mean, if you're on the shore and there's not much land in the scene), and i'd recommend at least a minute per run, if possible.

If you decide to use it as a CPU benchmark, go through the towns on Altis.

 

[memrex]

Are they just testing the R9 280x reference card here? Any other benchmarks I've seen of the ASUS, MSI, or Sapphire non-reference 280x they out preform (by a small percent) or are equal to the 7970GE.

 

[memrex]

Are they just testing the R9 280x reference card here? Any other benchmarks I've seen of the ASUS, MSI, or Sapphire non-reference 280x they out preform (by a small percent) or are equal to the 7970GE.

 

[memrex]

Are they just testing the R9 280x reference card here? Any other benchmarks I've seen of the ASUS, MSI, or Sapphire non-reference 280x they out preform (by a small percent) or are equal to the 7970GE.

 

[-Fran-]

Thanks a lot for adding GRID 2 to the suit 8)

One question for the game though... Do you guys had Global Illumination and Advanced Lightning on? It really takes a massive hit on nVidia and AMD cards, but I really like how the scenes look with it on.

This is a feature they introduced with DiRT Showdown (a very good game IMO) and I think the F1-series have it as well, but never noticed if you guys keep them on or off.

Cheers!

 

[master9716]

Extremely disappointed of the power consumption with 3 monitors , extremely dissapointed.

 

[masterbinky]

This is why I refused to buy a new graphics card this year. AMD and Nvidia both said (and basically agreed) not to release any (actually) new silicon this year. Try again next year boys.

 

[DarkSable]

The deal was at Fry's, but it appears to have been a typo that was corrected. (Before I got a pair, dangit!)

http://slickdeals.net/f/6320974-fry-s-msi-radeon-hd-7950-3gb-for-129-99-after-rebate

 

[hannibal]

Nice price drops in 280x. But next big update will wait 20nm production as it has been said before. These are just fine in waiting for that.

 

[Tanquen]

"There’s certainly something to be said for revisiting a GPU when it's selling for $200 less than the last time you reviewed it."

Not when that was 2 years ago.

"The R9 290 and 290X will feature TrueAudio, too. Will either of those cards have what it takes to do battle with GeForce GTX Titan or 780"

Maybe if they are $399. What are 2 290X cards ($1400) going to do that 2 7970 cards ($600) can't. A few more FPS for another (If Newegg is right) $800. Hmm...

 

[Ryan Klug]

Something's wrong with Tom's Hardware photo / tables inserting today. Mine are all blown up and cover the adjacent text. Using IE 8. That's new for today, and in all of the articles, not just this one. Yesterday the site was fine.

 

[slomo4sho]

The deal was at Fry's, but it appears to have been a typo that was corrected. (Before I got a pair, dangit!)

http://slickdeals.net/f/6320974-fry-s-msi-radeon-hd-7950-3gb-for-129-99-after-rebate

Gotta love Fry's price mistakes.

 

[cmi86]

R9-270X Should have used Tahiti LE (or 7950) and still been priced at $200 ($225 for 7950) with performance so close to the $250 (more commonly $275-300) GTX-760 it would have been a real shot in the chin to nvidia, especially with the R9-280X trading blows with a $100 more expensive gtx 770.

 

[computertech82]

I always though renaming was pretty stupid. But it does TRICK users into getting a crappy card that they thought was really a 'new' card.