Radeon R7 250X Review: Reprising Radeon HD 7770 At $100

[icemunk]

I've been pretty happy with my dual 7770's. I can run Battlefield 4 on my triple monitors at medium settings with 30-40fps. I'll be upgrading to dual 280X cards shortly, and giving these 7770's to my nephew, but they really do a great job.

 

[Umfriend]

Given that these are not exactly top-of-the line cards, I would be much more interested how they would stack up paired with a CPU in the same budget-type, say an i3?

 

[RadoslawWDudziak]

Why i cant see Mantle technology review and benchamarks on Tomshardware? It would be nice to see tests of it scalability (LowLev GFX, MidLevGFX, HighLev GFX with LowLev CPU, MidLev CPU and HighLev CPU, in all combinations)? I know that AMD CGN is a bit exotic right now, but remember that next gen consoles uses AMD APUs... so if mantle became adopted to XBox One and PS4 (and i think its a matter of time, MS and Sony won't miss opportunity to be faster) - it may become more popular in PC market...

 

[AnEwG]

Why i cant see Mantle technology review and benchamarks on Tomshardware? It would be nice to see tests of it scalability (LowLev GFX, MidLevGFX, HighLev GFX with LowLev CPU, MidLev CPU and HighLev CPU, in all combinations)? I know that AMD CGN is a bit exotic right now, but remember that next gen consoles uses AMD APUs... so if mantle became adopted to XBox One and PS4 (and i think its a matter of time, MS and Sony won't miss opportunity to be faster) - it may become more popular in PC market...

The only game that is using Mantle right now is BF4, and the jest of it is that The most benefiting systems from mantle are systems that are using strong GPUs with APUs.

 

[AnEwG]

Given that these are not exactly top-of-the line cards, I would be much more interested how they would stack up paired with a CPU in the same budget-type, say an i3?

If it is an i3-4130 then you are better off with a mid to lower-mid range card to see a good performance.

 

[cleeve]

Why i cant see Mantle technology review and benchamarks on Tomshardware?

We do plan to have a mantle analysis in the future, with multiple CPU/GPU combos.

We have some time-sensitive stuff to get off of our plate first, tho.

 

[Lessthannil]

I guess this is the new GTX 650 Ti BOOST (but not in performance obviously). It offers good 1080p performance for a very, very good value.

 

[SteelCity1981]

cleeve apparently you can't read the r250 is on the list on the first page I was commenting on the r250 specs price point compared to the 7700/250xwhat doesn't make sense is how you twist this into thinking I was talking about the r250x when I never mentioned it in my first post and I clrealy stated in my 2nd post that the 7700/ r250x when comparing the r250.

Yeah, poor context probably doesn't reflect too badly on my reading skills.You can't expect clarity when you go to an R250X review and begin with the statement "why would you get this card?" out of the gate without qualifying it.That's like commenting on a 2014 Ford Mustang review starting with "This car sucks" and being offended that people didn't automatically understand you were talking about the 1998 Ford Mustang. It's more reasonable to assume you're confused, actually.Not the best communication technique, there. 😉

poor context? I'm sorry if you were the one that couldn't tell the diff between a r250 in which I was implying and an r250x, that's not my problem that your reading skills are sub par. lol yes because there was no clearity in my first post when I mention the "R250" 3 times and since you asked why mention it in an r250x review because toms hardware mentioned the r250 in this review and used it as benchmarks and because of that I was ref the card in comparison so. so me mentioning it was valid, it's not like I was mentioning a gpu that wasn't on this review at all. seriously dude just stop lol. um no that's not what it would be like at all considering I gave ref to the r250. my communication isn't the problem it's your reading and how poorly you comprehend what you are reading.

 

[SteelCity1981]

.........

 

[cleeve]

cleeve poor context? I'm sorry

Apology accepted!

Just try a bit harder to make sense next time and use proper context, especially if being misunderstood makes you upset.

 

[SteelCity1981]

I'm not upset at all it's not my fault reading is hard for you troll. lol

 

[maxera]

For me who wants to start in 1080p gaming. should ditch this card and just add 100$ more to get 270x. it is more valuable

 

[cleeve]

my fault reading is hard

Don't be so hard on yourself, nobody's perfect.

Starting to get a sense of how important context is yet? 😀

 

[cleeve]

^ Having fun there big cheese, Can you allude to why dx10 was used in metro and not dx11 ?

Heheh, maybe. 😀

Dx10? Because it was faster in the tests I ran. I was looking for playable performance at 1080p and Dx11 didn't make the cut.

Honestly, the Dx10 visuals are very good anyway as you can see in the screenshot.

 

[cleeve]

seemed ok here

Of course it did, that's a different game... Metro 2033.

The new one is Metro: Last Light...

 

[Jacob Pickering]

so if it's identical to the 7770's they should enable dual graphics with kaveri and 7770's since the 250x and 7770 have the closest processor count to kaveri's integrated graphics, being the integrated graphics count is in the 500 range and the 7770/250x is only a lil more at 640. I bought two sapphire overclocked 7700's a lil while back and i've seen a richland apu dual graphics 3dmark score saying it had 3 7750's meaning integrated and two 7750's in tri-fire? in any case two 7770's and kaveri's integrated graphics working together would be quite amazing but they'll probably never make drivers to support kaveri with one 7770 let alone two, gotta shell out the coin for an r7. in any case it's good that they're making an r7 card that will dual graphics with kaveri well, the 384 and 900 processor counts on the previously available r7 cards left no ideal card to dual graphics with kaveri, definately a good fix to introduce this card.

 

[cleeve]

Reading is fundamental ! Comprehension is critical ! sticking your foot in your mouth ! priceless. Thought i would save you the trouble.

The print at thg is getting smaller and i am getting old.

Ouch!

Harsh, bro. Harsh. I had no admonishments for you there! I wouldn't have done that to you unless you abandoned civility.

Still waiting for you to drop the fm2+ mb roundup you promised ?

I believe Thomas is working on the FM2+ mobo roundup as we speak, I don't have an ETA for you though.

 

[cleeve]

so if it's identical to the 7770's they should enable dual graphics with kaveri and 7770's since the 250x and 7770 have the closest processor count to kaveri's integrated graphics, being the integrated graphics count is in the 500 range and the 7770/250x is only a lil more at 640. I bought two sapphire overclocked 7700's a lil while back and i've seen a richland apu dual graphics 3dmark score saying it had 3 7750's meaning integrated and two 7750's in tri-fire? in any case two 7770's and kaveri's integrated graphics working together would be quite amazing but they'll probably never make drivers to support kaveri with one 7770 let alone two, gotta shell out the coin for an r7. in any case it's good that they're making an r7 card that will dual graphics with kaveri well, the 384 and 900 processor counts on the previously available r7 cards left no ideal card to dual graphics with kaveri, definately a good fix to introduce this card.

Just an FYI, Kaveri integrated is closest to the 7750, with 512 shader cores. On the A10-7850K anyway... the 7700K and 7600 use 384 cores I think, like the 250 (not 250X).

 

[goodriot]

Ah man what timing. My PSU died and killed my GPU fan as well so on Friday I'm going to throw down $200 ($210 MAX) on a PSU and budget GPU. I've been torn between the HD7770 and 650Ti but leaning on the 650Ti... but now after seeing this 250X + seeing a MSI R7 260 for $125 I think I might have to go with the R7 260 if not than the 250X (yes I know it's a HD7770, but I also now know how the 650Ti for $10 more would be pointless). Newegg prices have been changing a lot this week + shipping on most cards all of a sudden, so it will probably be a last minute decision based on prices come Friday.

 

[InvalidError]

so if it's identical to the 7770's they should enable dual graphics with kaveri and 7770's since the 250x and 7770 have the closest processor count to kaveri's integrated graphics, being the integrated graphics count is in the 500 range and the 7770/250x is only a lil more at 640.

Except the discrete GPUs are running 200-300MHz faster and with GDDR5, they have 3-4X as much RAM bandwidth so the net throughput on a discrete GPU is significantly higher than the nearest physically equivalent IGP paired with ~1866GT/s DDR3.

 

[goodriot]

Ah man what timing. My PSU died and killed my GPU fan as well so on Friday I'm going to throw down $200 ($210 MAX) on a PSU and budget GPU. I've been torn between the HD7770 and 650Ti but leaning on the 650Ti... but now after seeing this 250X + seeing a MSI R7 260 for $125 I think I might have to go with the R7 260 if not than the 250X (yes I know it's a HD7770, but I also now know how the 650Ti for $10 more would be pointless). Newegg prices have been changing a lot this week + shipping on most cards all of a sudden, so it will probably be a last minute decision based on prices come Friday.

And as I say that I'm finding R7 260X's now that are in my price range too, ouuu the decisions shall be real come Friday.

 

[goodriot]

Ah man what timing. My PSU died and killed my GPU fan as well so on Friday I'm going to throw down $200 ($210 MAX) on a PSU and budget GPU. I've been torn between the HD7770 and 650Ti but leaning on the 650Ti... but now after seeing this 250X + seeing a MSI R7 260 for $125 I think I might have to go with the R7 260 if not than the 250X (yes I know it's a HD7770, but I also now know how the 650Ti for $10 more would be pointless). Newegg prices have been changing a lot this week + shipping on most cards all of a sudden, so it will probably be a last minute decision based on prices come Friday.

And as I say that I'm finding R7 260X's now that are in my price range too, ouuu the decisions shall be real come Friday.

 

[cleeve]

And as I say that I'm finding R7 260X's now that are in my price range too, ouuu the decisions shall be real come Friday.

Doesn't sound like much of a decision, the Radeon R7 260X will put a real hurt on the R7 250X and 650 Ti.

I will say this, though... New stuff might be coming, you might want to hold off for a couple weeks...

Just sayin'. 😉

 

[cat1092]

Dang, I just bought the MSI Radeon 7770 GHz edition at Newegg for $109 ($99 after rebate)! The newer card may be better, but the MSI R7770 did have good reviews (some gave it one egg over rebates) & I'm satisfied with it. These type of cards are not only for budget builds, they're also good to upgrade OEM cards such as the OEM 7570. Or to add a discrete card to a bought PC w/out an added card. The Intel HD 4600 scores only 6.6 on the WEI (Windows 7 Pro), the R7770 pushed it to 7.4 w/Intel dual graphics disabled. And run cool at the same time. There are other differences between the Intel 2500 CPU's & Haswell that hasn't been noted, one of which is lowered power usage & cooler running chips. My i7-4770 averages 20-30C in temps, 32-34C if running a virtual machine. Not bad with stock Dell cooling. The R7770 is cool running also, currently at 27C.

Cat

 

[wtfxxxgp]

Sigh. It's a good enough card for what it is and to be honest, those screenshots in isolation are beautiful! Gone are the days when "low details" gave us horrid looking screens that made us want to shoot ourselves instead of our opponents. I'm a practical person though. When I shop for something, I'd much rather save up and buy a decent enough card that will allow me to wait at least 3 to 4 years for another upgrade. As it is, my GTX295 is still every bit as brilliant today as it was in 2009, but it isn't a DX11 card and I'd need something that can give me similar sort of performance but with the better technology etc. so I'm looking at getting a GTX760 next month and not planning to upgrade that for another 3 - 5 years either. The folks that really can't wait/budget/afford anything other than this range of cards would do well to consider this new card in my opinion.