Report: AMD's Volcanic Islands to be Called Radeon R-200

[digiex]

It is right to drop "HD", it will no longer identified them with pathetic Intel HD graphics.

Although AMD got the "HD" naming ahead of Intel, Intel hijack it and also named their pathetic graphics "HD".

 

[Super_Nova]

Hmmm, I wonder, couldn't it also be a hommage to the arcade classic R-type? (Anyone remember that game🙂 ?) The main ship was also called R9 but there were also R8's, R7's and R6's. Wouldn't be the first time AMD used a name that also has a connection to the arcade. So was the AM series also an advanced type of arcadeboard from Sega. Hmmm.

 

[back_by_demand]

I truly could not care about the name, all I want is a reasonable price and for it to pump pixels - call it the SH1T as long as we get great performance

 

[Immaculate]

For anyone looking for the GPU-Z R9 200

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2398/radeon-r9-200-series.html

 

[Immaculate]

Its pretty much the same as the 7950?

http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/DESKTOP/GRAPHICS/7000/7950/Pages/radeon-7950.aspx#3

 

[ojas]

Not bad. Makes sense. After all, there are only so many number combinations you can use without making it ridiculous.

 

[qlum]

Why not go with a year based naming scheme, 2013: 97, 2014: 85
and so on.

 

[truegenius]

omiting "0" from current naming scheme sounds better
example, instead of hd7970, they can have hd797,

this R9-xxx thing is confusing

 

[cypeq]

alphabetic letter + two digit model number. You are set With naming scheme for 50 years amd.

 

[Soda-88]

I Don't like this new naming scheme, how will I know if this is the current generation or a previous generation model?

Are you being serious? It's the same as Intel's Core i naming scheme...

 

[lp231]

This new naming is confusing, they should have just name it
R100 = mid range
R200 = mid/high end
R300 = high end

 

[DRosencraft]

Let's face it; there is not a "perfect" naming scheme. Nouns get stale and are much more easily confused over time compared to noun/number combinations. But over time number sequences reach a point where they become too lengthy and lose their meaning or significance. The closest to a permanent solution would be to add an actual identifier for the year (Radeon 7000-2013), but everyone will start calling it shorthand anyway... no perfect answer.

 

[Ryan Klug]

AMD's naming scheme is too confusing. I'm sticking to my Nvidia GTX 670. "6th" generation, "70" power.

 

[universal remonster]

This new naming is confusing, they should have just name it
R100 = mid range
R200 = mid/high end
R300 = high end

Ok, well what about the generation after this one? Are you going to name it the
R400=midrange
R500=mid/highend
R600=highend
???

So we get a total of 3 generations before we hit the 9xx issue again? It's just like Soda 88 said, this is exactly the same as the Intel naming scheme. i3=R7, i5=R8, i7=R9............2700k=290, 3770k=390, 4770k=490... and so on. The only difference is that AMD has more products per R# than Intel has per i#

With that said, I do think in AMD's case that the R# is a bit redundant. Just by looking at numbers 270,275,280,285,290 we can easily determine what is the highend, mid range, and low end. So maybe an R290, R285... would be a cleaner naming scheme. Either way, they are going to look like they stole Intel's or NVidia's naming style. (I do realize ATi used the R200 style in the past as well, but that was an internal name)

Why not just stick with the current naming config and replace the HD with R and start back at the R2970?

 

[doct3rphil]

Similar to 1st gen Core CPUs: i3 xxx, i5 xxx, i7 xxx

 

[m32]

I have no idea what power cards are going to hold now.....

 

[hannibal]

Well for normal user this may be easier. If you want to get the best buy r9, in the upper middle range r8 and middle range r7, and low end r6 (or even smaller) . I personally find it guite easy. Easier than saying if the 8770 is better or worse than 7850? Well we all know that the later is better even it has lower total number, but for mrs Smith it may be easier to remember that r9 is allways better than r8 and so on...
I personally would like to have some thing to separete one and multi core chips apart... It seems to be that x90 series is going to be multi GPU and x85 the best single GPU card, but that is not so easy to to normal mr. Smith... Otherwise this is much easier that previous naming sheme... until everything goes wrong and we will see several generation of GPU cores in the same production series...

Lets see...
r9-285 vs r9-385 vs r8-375: it is easy to tell them apart. First two are the best you can get (for single GPU). The one in the midle is the new generation same as the last (3xx). But the last is only from the middle range series, so not as poverfull as the first one and one in the middle. So if they don't mess up, this is easier than the old system!

 

[chicofehr]

Should I get a Geforce 290 or a Radeon 290? I need to thing about it.

 

[lp231]

This new naming is confusing, they should have just name it
R100 = mid range
R200 = mid/high end
R300 = high end

Ok, well what about the generation after this one? Are you going to name it the
R400=midrange
R500=mid/highend
R600=highend
???

They can just go R125, R127, R129
1st # = Class
2nd # = Generation
3rd # = Good, Better, Best
AMD is copying Intel's numbering, but the way they do it, makes it difficult for each card to stand out from one another.
Suppose this new naming is out and you're planning to get a AMD graphic card.
We have AMD R8 275 and AMD R9 280, price difference is $150 (not actual price difference). We know R9 is better than R8, but what is the difference between 275 and 280? Is the performance of 280 really worth the extra $150 or should we just save the $150 and just get the 275?
Intel's numbering makes sense because it's backed up by the number of cores/HT and clock speed.
AMD on the other hand don't have cores and clock speed to back theirs up.

@ doct3rphil
Intel 1st gen core cpus are, Core i3 500 Core i5 600 and Core i7 800. Their numbering are far apart, making it easier to see Core i7 is better than Core i3.

 

[bustapr]

They could just remove the R9/R8, since model numbers 270-390 seems self-explanatory.

the R9/R8 seem to be the level of card that it is. I suspect R9 = high end, R8 = Mid Range, etc. the 2xx/3xx seems to be the gen. it makes sense, but I also understand how people will be confused by this. its like people saying "im going to wait to buy the new r8/r9 series cards" instead of saying "Im going to wait to buy the new 78xx/79xx".

 

[016ive]

This sound reasonable as there are only two digits left to mark new series (8xxx-9xxx)

They already had popular Radeon 8000 and 9000 series cards. They've been off the shelf for more than a decade but I can see why they would want to avoid confusion.

Oddly enough, the internal codename for the Radeon 8000 and 9000 series GPUs made from 2001 to 2003 was "R200". It looks to me like they've decided to go full circle on the naming conventions.

Thanks,I didn't know that.I'm too young to know what AMD had more than a decade ago

 

[memadmax]

Why don't they just go: Big, medium, small?
lol

 

[QEFX]

I can't wait for the future 4xx cards. R9-420 specifically.

 

[JonnyDough]

FINALLY. Someone is paying attention to what the consumer demands! Listen up NVidia, your naming schemes are the WORST!

 

[abbadon_34]

my god, you want to make it simple? name it 1, 2, 3, etc where the high the number the more powerful the card. ALWAYS. subchanges can 2.5 or 2.75, but the bigger the number the more powerful the card. Is it really so hard?