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

[slomo4sho]

Easier and cheaper to water cool? I'm not sure that's true. But any how water cooling aside, the point stands - why buy a reference card when enhanced versions of the card are available for the same price? It just does not make sense unless you're somehow saving a bunch of cash for your water cooling unit ( which I really don't think you would)

It isn't always a guarantee that you will find a block that fits a custom PCB so having a reference PCB is the way to go (especially early on). If you plan on putting the card under water, you will be overclocking so any factory overclock becomes meaningless.

 

[benjamin pearcy]

amd always came up with something truely new of something. thats what i like from amd. this time mantle, trueaudio. i didn't see the same thing with nvidia. what cuda? more sp? more rop? boring. btw u know when u comparing the two in windows, the color in nvidia cards looks dull, i've tested it with many nvidia cards. their color looks dull compare to amd that looks more vibrant. and in movies too.

 

[Mousemonkey]

amd always came up with something truely new of something. thats what i like from amd. this time mantle, trueaudio. i didn't see the same thing with nvidia. what cuda? more sp? more rop? boring. btw u know when u comparing the two in windows, the color in nvidia cards looks dull, i've tested it with many nvidia cards. their color looks dull compare to amd that looks more vibrant. and in movies too.

I have both Nvidia and AMD cards in both of my rigs and even with the monitors side by side I can't tell the difference so I think its more of a personal preference than anything.

 

[Centenniallax81]

You can pair a r9 280x with a 7970 GHz ed..... Sounds like a sweet deal if you are looking for a performance bump but won't want to drop the money for an r9 290 or r9 290x.

 

[maj429]

i'll take a 7950 at $129 thank you very much (or two). There is a major retailer selling them for that this week. Best buy all year. two 7950s for the price of one r9-280x? yeah... i'll do that all day every day.

Where? I Googled that price and came up emptyhanded...

 

[Onus]

Slickdeals showed Fry's had that price, but it may have been a typo.

 

[Fullmetal_Alchemist]

AMD really needs to pick up their game. I was really hoping for some new "most bang for the buck" innovation, but all AMD is givings us is overclocked versions or stuff we already have. Come on AMD you had me all excited for the new Hawaii gpu, but then I find out its a renaming of old stuff... I am very disappointed in you... But on the bright side, the 7870 prices will fall and I can get another for some crossfire!

 

[jimmysmitty]

Seriously, your going to put a comparison chart up and not include the 770 or 780 in the mix so we can see the gap in performance? AMD must have paid Tom off to better help market the 280X.

Yes lets take a card that's 2x the price to compare. Honestly its pointless as we all know the 780 will pretty much beat the 280X. we know that because its the same as the HD7970.

I am sure once they review the 290X there will be comparison but until then this is a fine way to show what the rebadge does, which is pretty much nothing if you already have a more current gen card.

Other sites show completely different performance for these cards (in a positive way)...HMMM...

It depends on the game, settings etc. And honestly since it is a exact replica of a HD7970, I don't expect it to do anything different than my HD7970.

Same core count, memory size, memory interface, clock speed etc. Its still GCN, not GCN 2.0.

So unless those other sites are pulling the wool over your eyes, then what THG has posted is what they should be honestly.

if the 280x has the same tahiti core then you should be able to CF with the older generation, right? speaking of CF, will we see any frame pacing issues with these cards?

CF, not sure. It should. That's why you could only CFX the HD6000 (up to a mid point) with the AMD APUs using the 6000 moniker as they were the same core (VLIW5, VLIW4, GCN etc).

As for frame pacing, as a single card the HD7970 didn't really suffer. It was in CFX that it really suffered in it.

 

[jimmysmitty]

amd always came up with something truely new of something. thats what i like from amd. this time mantle, trueaudio. i didn't see the same thing with nvidia. what cuda? more sp? more rop? boring. btw u know when u comparing the two in windows, the color in nvidia cards looks dull, i've tested it with many nvidia cards. their color looks dull compare to amd that looks more vibrant. and in movies too.

I have both Nvidia and AMD cards in both of my rigs and even with the monitors side by side I can't tell the difference so I think its more of a personal preference than anything.

Or it could even be driver settings. I tend to leave my GPU on default and use my monitor but I could see stock settings on either being dull depending on the monitor you have.

 

[anthony8989]

Easier and cheaper to water cool? I'm not sure that's true. But any how water cooling aside, the point stands - why buy a reference card when enhanced versions of the card are available for the same price? It just does not make sense unless you're somehow saving a bunch of cash for your water cooling unit ( which I really don't think you would)

It isn't always a guarantee that you will find a block that fits a custom PCB so having a reference PCB is the way to go (especially early on). If you plan on putting the card under water, you will be overclocking so any factory overclock becomes meaningless.

Yeah I understand that. Most cards are reference PCB with just custom fan/heatsink combos any way though. His point still stands in my opinion. In most cases you're getting a card that is the exact same price with a factory over clock and a custom cooling unit out of the box. Regardless if you decide to water-cool immediately or eventually, it doesn't make sense to benchmark and compare cards that virtually no one will buy.

 

[anthony8989]

The bottom line is: In GPU and CPU technology, AMD is just plain inferior to its competitors...

Is that a whiff of troll, or just fanboy?
I've owned cards from both companies over the last dozen+ years, and nothing has convinced me that one is notably inferior.
Iirc, image quality metrics favor AMD, but I haven't watched movies on my cards so I couldn't tell you there's a difference first hand. At the lower end of the budget and wattage scale where I typically buy, AMD wins on bang/buck hands down, and has pretty much since the HD5670, maybe before. I'd love for nVidia to compete in that range, but they don't. If nVidia had a competitor to the low-profile HD7750, I'd buy it right now. OTOH, nVidia appears to win at the top end on pure bang, and SLI seems to have been the better multi-card solution for a long time. I'm using weasel-words like "seems," and "appears," and that's part of my point; the two companies have their strengths and weaknesses, but overall neither one is remarkably "inferior" to the other, and differences will largely be a matter of opinion.

Yeah you said it : "at the lower end of the budget... AMD wins on bang/buck" . I could be misinterpreting your point but it seems like you are apparently reinforcing my original statement that "...you only go AMD when you can't afford nVidia or Intel".
Admittedly Radeon has the 7750 price bracket completely controlled, but I really don't think nVidia values that segment of the market enough compete with them directly. The profit margins on the cards in that price-point are very small and it's a decision they must have made at the corporate level to stay out of that fight. Certainly this is mostly speculation but what else do we really do here besides speculate. 😉
I have owned many of cards from both factions as well. And in owning these cards I've come to the conclusion that nVidia is a premium brand - that drives a premium price at times. Their architecture and drivers are capable of so much more potential than Radeon's. Look at the performance and efficiency differences between the GTX 600 and 700 series. Then look at the differences between the HD 7000 and R9-200 series.

 

[eldragon0]

Possibly good news everyone!! http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600100181%20600473898%204022&IsNodeId=1&name=%24750%20-%20%241000

shows all r9 270 and r9 280's as ALSO 750$+ Meaning that previous code that was parsed out most likely was just their default to separate the R7's from R9's.

 

[Mousemonkey]

amd always came up with something truely new of something. thats what i like from amd. this time mantle, trueaudio. i didn't see the same thing with nvidia. what cuda? more sp? more rop? boring. btw u know when u comparing the two in windows, the color in nvidia cards looks dull, i've tested it with many nvidia cards. their color looks dull compare to amd that looks more vibrant. and in movies too.

I have both Nvidia and AMD cards in both of my rigs and even with the monitors side by side I can't tell the difference so I think its more of a personal preference than anything.

Or it could even be driver settings. I tend to leave my GPU on default and use my monitor but I could see stock settings on either being dull depending on the monitor you have.

Good point, I do the same and both and of my monitors are Samsung that are not too dissimilar.

 

[Onus]

The low-budget segment is huge compared to the high-dollar range. Margins are lower, but unit sales are so much higher that a few more dollars per card doesn't matter.

 

[enayet_redeemer]

What in the earth? My old Radeon HD4850 has more pixel rate and memory bandwidth than R9 280X?? R9 280X has 9.6GPixels/s, HD4850 has 10.4GPixels/s!!! R9 280X has 28.8GB/s memory bandwidth, HD4850 has 67.2GB/s?
How is it possible? Is it a slower card to HD4850?

 

[phxrider]

Where was the (current @ Newegg) [strike]$210[/strike] $195 Radeon 7950? Seems like a no-brainer for [strike]$10 over[/strike] $5 less than the 270X, and even [strike]a good value relative to[/strike] beats the 7870 at [strike]$180[/strike] $175.

However.....
AMD needs to make a shorter high-end card. I can get a 7870 (or 270X) into the system I'm thinking about upgrading, but NO Tahiti card will fit. I can buy NVIDIA cards all the way up to the 670 though for it, so it's either Pitcairn or a GTX 760 depending on how much I decide to spend (670 is overpriced).

 

[16bit]

Looking forward to getting a 7970 ghz for only 300$.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

What in the earth? My old Radeon HD4850 has more pixel rate and memory bandwidth than R9 280X?? R9 280X has 9.6GPixels/s, HD4850 has 10.4GPixels/s!!! R9 280X has 28.8GB/s memory bandwidth, HD4850 has 67.2GB/s?
How is it possible? Is it a slower card to HD4850?

I think GPU-Z must have a bug, because it's 288GB/s. I'd imagine the pixel rate is similarly increased, though haven't found anything yet.

 

[Mupples]

Tom's how come I know more about this product and all you spew is slander? The new GPUs will not beat the FPS but they will have the best steady average of FPS providing a clean, smooth visual experience. Not only that but they also provide interconnectivity beyond the level of standard Crossfire. Rumors are that with APUs they'll get a direct line access to the Instruction sets and be treated as RISC/ASIC processors with AMD's various instruction sets comparable to the consoles. They'll have three times the performance in their own native environment. Considering that the processors were completely designed differently yet providing the same yield performance as last version they must have accomplished some major feats in the more unified technology field.

 

[Novuake]

^ ^ ^Oh yes, you are making LOADS of sense...

Damn fanboy.

 

[nokiddingboss]

too much hate and animosity towards amd from tom's these days. sure the 280x won an award but still its bashed for being a rebrand. from my standpoint, the reason the gtx770 was well received here at tom's was because nvidia is still selling their gtx680 at stupidly high price. at least amd cut the prices of their cards along with delivering rebranded gpu's with a few more bells and whistles. even if you say that they are doing basically the same thing, what i don't get is the hostile attitude towards amd. its written all over the wall and i can't help but notice.

 

[Onus]

Hmmm, I'm not getting any unique hostility toward AMD. Perhaps, people are just finally so tired of the rebrand-shuffle, they're more strident in their displeasure.
It also seemed to me, that the GTX770 is a notably faster, cheaper GTX680, but these new AMD cards are not significantly faster and cheaper than the originals; IMHO this article makes a good case to get a HD7970, particularly if the prices on them drop.

 

[Novuake]

Hmmm, I'm not getting any unique hostility toward AMD. Perhaps, people are just finally so tired of the rebrand-shuffle, they're more strident in their displeasure.
It also seemed to me, that the GTX770 is a notably faster, cheaper GTX680, but these new AMD cards are not significantly faster and cheaper than the originals; IMHO this article makes a good case to get a HD7970, particularly if the prices on them drop.

Well keep in mind that we have not seen the 290x just yet(I am hoping its not an HD7990 rebrand, that will tear me up very bad).

 

[ingtar33]

Hmmm, I'm not getting any unique hostility toward AMD. Perhaps, people are just finally so tired of the rebrand-shuffle, they're more strident in their displeasure.
It also seemed to me, that the GTX770 is a notably faster, cheaper GTX680, but these new AMD cards are not significantly faster and cheaper than the originals; IMHO this article makes a good case to get a HD7970, particularly if the prices on them drop.

I agree with your whole post. except for that little bit at the end. if anything this article screams at me to get a 7950 while it's priced under $200... cause their rebranded 7870 (r9-270x) is coming in at $200... once all the 7950's are sold out you can bet the re-branded 7950 (r9-280) will come in at a higher price then $200

 

[nokiddingboss]

Hmmm, I'm not getting any unique hostility toward AMD. Perhaps, people are just finally so tired of the rebrand-shuffle, they're more strident in their displeasure.
It also seemed to me, that the GTX770 is a notably faster, cheaper GTX680, but these new AMD cards are not significantly faster and cheaper than the originals; IMHO this article makes a good case to get a HD7970, particularly if the prices on them drop.

the only reason for the gtx770's being cheaper is because nvidia didn't cut the price of the gtx680 as it is the decent thing to do for its customers. nvidia should have dropped the 680 below $400 when the 770 came out but didn't. in my opinion, the gtx770's price is superficial at best. i agree with you in regards with the 7970 (even the 7950). it didn't suddenly suck the moment the gtx770/780 or r280x were released. in fact its quite the opposite, it offered one of the greatest bargain bin deals in the history gpu prices with performance that nips at the heels of more expensive gpu's.