Radeon R7 240 And 250: Our Sub-$100 Gaming Card Round-Up

[th3parasit3]

I do not understand the non-standardize testing methodology for these lower-end cards. Benchmarks should have been done at six different levels. Type one Quality: Low and High. Type two Resolution: 1280x1024, 1680x1050, and 1920x1080. No AA (CMAA/MSAA/etc). Instead the quality settings and resolutions hop around and do not provide a coherent picture of what the card can do at each resolution and quality setting. For instances, the BioShock benchmark is done at a lowest setting of 1080p with very low quality. There are few people interested in that benchmark. More people would be interested in 1280x1024 and 1680x1050. This way if they want to play it in Window Mode or have a lower resolution screen then they have some idea what the card can do. English 101: Know your audience.

 

[Phillip Wager]

whoever suggested using crossfire for these cards must be insane you NEVER xfire video cards that are on a 128bit bus. the scaleing would be rediculously low you would get maybe 10% more performance and you would be using way more power than if you had just bought a more powerfull graphics card that was on a 256 bit bus. i mean if you just find two of them lying around then i guess go ahead but two really low end graphics cards does not even equal one midrange graphics card.

 

[abitoms]

good article.i tried my best to nit pick a few, but to my great chagrin, i turned out a blank !however, i have something to say for and against the R7-240.May be the very good TDP of the R7-240 of just 30W justifies its price relative to the GT640. Then again, in your real-world testing, the power consumption of the R7-240 is only 10W better than that of the GT640.Then once again, I ended up talking about TDP and power consumption as if they were exactly the same.

 

[abitoms]

+1 to what Tridon said.Tridon said: "...an efficiency chart. Like average frames pr. average watt usage through a benchmark, or something in that vein."That would add to the richness of the information in an already-good site.@ Don/author: You could consider having different graphs for different attributes. For e.g. this means having different charts for idle and load power consumption. Of course, mixing them up has a different merit as well, that I don't deny. Being in the research field, I prefer having separate charts, one chart for one attribute and one attribute for one chart.Boytitan2 said: "...most people who are just grabbing a graphics card for a prebuilt system will not be able to use the thing with out a psu upgrade which now means you should just get a better card since you are spending more money."@Boytitan2: This is certainly better than anandtech using an OEM-only and costly IrisPro for the retail-available Kaveri review. In that case, after reading the anandtech review, you decide to 'get an Iris Pro graphics card'. You have to buy a whole system to get an Iris Pro. Having to *probably* get just an extra PSU to get an 7770 certainly beats the Iris Pro situation.PS: Anandtech had a technically great in-depth review. I should not miss pointing that out.PPS: Toms: This quoting system !!!!!!!!!

 

[ginjaninja7]

hole load of crap cards!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[rush21hit]

digiex comment got it right.I'm also curious how would an A10 Kaveri's iGPU fits in all of these sub-100. The figures on an A10 Kaveri suggest it somewhat relevant to an R7 250 level, but AMD also stated that it could go Xfire as high as 7750. Well, as long as they add in card also a GCN. But they also said, a 6670 would work too.I suppose that required an entirely new article *was about to build a Kaveri based PC. Specifically, the top tier one; A10-7850K. Any help would be appreciated, Toms

 

[jtenorj]

2 r7 250 have a total 768 shaders and 16 rops versus the r9 270x with 1280 shaders and 32 rops(both with same core clock). Also,r9 270x has 80 texture units while 2 r7 250 would have only 48. A closer comparison would be r7 260x(same functional units and similar core clock), or maybe that is what you meant to type in your post but put r9 270x by accident?

 

[jtenorj]

That was in response to PunchGrinder's comment. Why don't more comments show up when I click"display more more comments"? Also, what happened to viewing and/or editing comments in the forum?

 

[jtenorj]

never mind. just found the link for "view comments in forum".

 

[Guest]

Funny i bought a HD6850 for about $100 second hand exactly three years ago and it has the same perfomance as the HD7700 and you call it good value. That's hilarous!

 

[de5_Roy]

anyone having problems with comments (i dislike it too) on the article pages click the 'view thread in forum' link. you'll lose voting option but comments' display, quoting and reply are much easier.

it's been a while since the last entry level card roundup. actually it's been such a long time that i forgot when the last time it happened.

it was good to see how the radeon 7750 aged so well. at first, the 7770 was priced repulsively but it is much, much better now. along with the driver improvements, upcoming mantle optimizations, amd's value segment has a lot of good things to look forward to.
but. after reading this article, it seems like amd is replacing existing radeon hd 77xx series with under performing but overpriced successors. it'll help clear the current stock of older cards (which have come down in price in the cource of their cycle), but the new ones shoulda been either cheaper or more powerful. due to 7770, they don't seem worth buying. moreover, if you look for, you'll find cheap deals on 7790 cards almost everywhere (that i looked). 7790 and 7770 use more power but not so much more that entry level pcs with cheaper psus can't run them.

edit: i know it was a gaming roundup but i missed a couple of tests. the blu-ray/hd video playback test with card voltage, heat/temp and power measurement, and multi monitor power use. these cards usually get into htpcs, living room pcs and cheap multimonitor rigs(non-multi-display-gaming). unlike nvidia cards, gcn-based cards have a tendency to use way too much voltage and power for bluray, i don't think gcn 1.1 has fixed that. and may be a little bit of 4k video playback tests.

 

[Sakkura]

Funny i bought a HD6850 for about $100 second hand exactly three years ago and it has the same perfomance as the HD7700 and you call it good value. That's hilarous!

So you got it at nearly half price within just a few months of release. In that case, you should be able to find a second-hand 7770 for $50 or less today.

 

[infuse50]

you no i used to think you guys new what you where talking about but i was wrong i have a 6670 ddr3 2 gig his card and i can play grid 2 at maxed settings battel field 4 at med settings crysis 2 at maxed settings and crysis 3 at high settings just to name a few. my card i no is not the mid range card i want for playing games but it was what i could AFFORD at the time i got it from mircro center for $59.00 brand new so it has really surprised me on performance, and by the way im running a fx4100 cpu that you intel lovers say is no good for gaming i have built my computers for 20 years and one of the main reasons is to game im not saying that the 6670 is a great gaming card but it performs a lot better than your tests shows my last card was a gts 250 and it was a great gaming card but only dx 10.1 for gamers looking here fore budget gaming and do no not understand all the hardware and can only afford 60 or 70 dollar cards the 6670 is not bad. and also you seem to think that most of your readers have hd screens and i have played these games on a 47 inch hd tv but now having to use 17 inch tft samsung my point is that if they are playing on regular flat computer screens then they will get better performance and i would wager that a lot are when u are a budget gamer that means you cant afford wide screen tvs or 300 dollar video cards or 400 dollar mother boards ::: so come back to earth and start doing real budget articles please

 

[InvalidError]

and also you seem to think that most of your readers have hd screens

What is so unusual about that? 1080p LCDs go on sale for as little as $100 these days so people who do not already have one can get one for pretty darned cheap. 1080p has been the default in most retail whole-system kits for years already.

If you like gaming on your 6670 DDR3, suit yourself. But if you do get to try HD gaming on a HD7770 with GDDR5, the difference will be pretty obvious.

 

[infuse50]

see that is what i mean first of all you are not getting what i am trying to say, the 6670 is an entry level card you no that i no that" and because off the bit coin mining the faster video cards are going up again i would love to have had enough to bye the 7770 when i built this sys which by the way i built for under $200 and thats with 8 gigs of corsair mem 1 terabite hard drive asus mother board which was a peny with the combo cpu. and would like a 1080p monitar but i havent seen them with the hdmi port for 100 unless refurbed or returns that beeing said what i am tring to get across is that this artical is not realistic if you put the four lower cards in systems side by side and played the same games at the same settings how much of a difarence would you realy see not using your bench marking software i no that this articale is to compare the new R240 , 250 cards and how they performe but every test you guys have done compairing the 6670 or amd cpus for that mater have been one sided and not corect my piont is that if gamers can only afford entry level video cards and entry level cpus they still perform quit well compared to what toms hardware says they do a real buget computer is not a 650 or 500 or even 400 dollar system its 250 0r 300 dollar computer and for that kind of price versis performance to be abel to play these new games at mid or high settings is damn good compared to what we had hard ware wise 5 or ten years ago im just saying your making these cards sound like you cant game at all with them and the weakest part of my computer is the 6670 fore gaming becouse i want to run all games i play at ultra settings in 1080p but instead of getting a 7770 im waiting to see what this mantel in the new cards is going to offer and direct x 11.2 is going to offer when they come out. how about thinking a littel lower on the budget builds you do and try a 350 dollar build or a 450 build get closer to what most of us can realy afford or take and older hp or dell and show people how they can upgrade there computer with new mother board cpu, mem ,video card ,pws if needed and still be cheaper than going to best bye or online and byeing one. in this economy thats what id like to see and i think all your other readers would too just a thought.

 

[mamasan2000]

So you are mentioning games that are 2+ years old and get good performance. I did not buy a new system so I can be able to play old games. I bought it for new games, releasing this year, next year and year after that.

1080p has been the standard for soon 10 years.

 

[InvalidError]

see that is what i mean first of all you are not getting what i am trying to say, the 6670 is an entry level card you no that i no that"

The DDR3 HD6670 is not even entry-level by today's standards since today's IGPs are overrunning that performance level.

I never said that the DDR3 HD6670 was incapable of running games half-decently. One of my friends has one and most games are faily playable even in 1080p but they are nowhere near as smooth as my GDDR5 HD5770.

 

[Onus]

At 1600x900, I found a GDDR5 version of the HD6670 to be barely "sufferable" for GW2. Settings were mostly low, some better settings weren't even available, and the game was still jittery. Stepping up to a HD7750 (also GDDR5) exposed some better texture settings, and the game was only slightly jittery on a mix of medium and high settings (plus the better textures). Since GW2 is far from the most graphically demanding game out there, I don't think I'd want any less than a HD7750 in a gamer, and would much rather have at least a GTX650Ti or HD7790.

 

[Blaise170]

I personally have to disagree with their definition of mid-range. You can build a $600 (or less) PC running parts like the FX-6300 and 7950/760 which will max most games on the market right now for single monitor setups.

 

[Captain75]

For a low profile card, there is no sense in purchasing the R7 240 at all, get yourself a HD 7750, I play on high at 1600x900 with AA off at 50-60FPS

 

[infuse50]

ok to invaliderror i hope you mean hd7770 you said 5770 and we can go back and forth with this i was just simply saying to toms hardware not every one that posted a coment that my h.i.s 6670 2gig ddr3 performes better than the test with bench marking software are stating. i had a hd5770 when they first came out with gdr 5 it was crapy played dirt2 ok but thats about it, took it back and got a gts 250 " 256 bus is way better than 128 bit you no that? any way and i agree that the 6670 gdr 5 is faster than ddr3 but they dident have that in 2 gig ver when i got it. And too mamasan2000 what ? did you read what i said grid2 came out in 2013 battelfield 4 in2013 crysis 3 came out 2013 thats three games that are new what are you talking about 2 plus year old games read what i said again i did say crysis 2 which is 2 plus years old but very graphics intense but this card handels new games with eye candy way better then it gets credit for. or test shows thats all i am saying and i would like the 7970 to replace this card but 150 is too much right now so have to wait a littel longer and see whats next this year or is the r 240,250,260,260 ect it from amd this year ?

 

[infuse50]

invalid error my mistake you are right the hd 5770 is a decent card i was for some reason thinking you meant 5670 that is the card i had before taking back to get the gts 250 but if i rember right the 5770 has a 256 bit mem bus so it would be a mid to high end card cant compare that to the 6670 there is no contest your card is way faster and id say still can play all new games at high settings

 

[InvalidError]

if i rember right the 5770 has a 256 bit mem bus so it would be a mid to high end card cant compare that to the 6670 there is no contest

The HD57xx, 67xx, 77xx and R7-260 all have 128bits wide GDDR5 memory interfaces just like the x6xx do. The only difference is that the x6xx models have half the processing power on the x7xx models so GPU card manufacturers can get away with using DDR3 on those instead of GDDR5 without sacrificing tons of performance. On x7xx cards, using DDR3 instead of GDDR5 would kill the GPU's performance due to memory bottleneck: GDDR5 usually runs at 4800-6000MT/s vs 1800-2400MT/s for DDR3... so GDDR5 on the same 128bits bus provides 2-3X as much bandwidth.

And the 67xx are rebadged 57xx with a few minor tweaks much like the R7-260(X) are almost direct rebadgings of HD77xx.

 

[infuse50]

oh ok thanks for that just do not understand why amd or nvidia does not make a lower end card with 256 bit bus it should be the norm since the some of the high end cards are using 512 bus i dont think its cost them that much more to have a 256 bus on the 120 price point im hoping maybe this year the will do that but im not holding my breath but it would be great to see them without having to pay 200 and above i got the gts 250 for 129 but like i said it wasent dx 11 and most games are dx11 now so whent with what i could afford at the time i like to have the best eye candy in games and with amd releasing the 14.1 mantel drivers im waiting to so the test results is it a gimik or realy going to change performance and how many games are going to use this in the near future i want to upgrade this year on the graphics just waiting on a good deal on a R260 or 7790 if they dont fade out to quik computers are like cars speed cost how fast do you want go?

 

[juggar]

Think the question is what card/configuration is most sufficient/efficient/performance setup for Crossfire . With two of the R7 250s you have twice the GCNs. Which is better than that of the R9 270x. Or the same. However the card,mb configuration may not be adaqaute, or the price performance ratio might not match your requirements. Have read where the new A10 kaveris,can 'only'use the DDR3 type R7 240,250s. So there is a little consideration here for this. Some info from: http://wccftech.com/amd-kaveri-dual-graphics-works-ddr3-memory-based-radeon-r7-gpus/

What? two 250's have an equal or greater number of GCN's? Nope, 384 x 2 = 768. R270x GCN = 1280. Not even close man.