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AMD Radeon R7 265 Review: Curaçao Slides In At $150
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1. Radeon R7 265: Pitcairn's Second Lease On Life

We published Radeon R7 250X Review: Reprising Radeon HD 7770 At $100 just a few days ago, and that story's title is pretty self-explanatory. In essence, AMD re-named an existing product and dropped its price a few dollars to renew interest. Unfortunately, we're still waiting for the Radeon R7 250X to become available. 

Over the course of the last several months, AMD applied this treatment to its entire GPU portfolio to turn the Radeon HD 7000 family into Radeon R7s and R9s, often with higher clock rates than the cards they replaced. Today, AMD continues that trend by announcing its Radeon R7 265, which company representatives say won't be available until the end of February.

The Radeon R7 265 is the first card in AMD's re-branded line-up ending in a "5". Until now, everything else was a "0" or an "X": Radeon R7 240, 250, 250X, 260, 260X, and so on. That might seem like simple trivia, but I think there's a bit of a story there. You see, the Radeon R7 260X is typically found in the $140 range. The next model up, R9 270, was introduced at $180 back in November of last year. A $40 delta doesn't seem wide enough to justify another product, though. In fact, the 270 was actually a good deal.

But then, last month, the Radeon R9 270 jumped to $230, rising alongside the prices of several other AMD cards.

If that wasn't enough reason to introduce a new board, AMD must have been listening to the rumors about Nvidia's upcoming Maxwell architecture and an unconfirmed card called GeForce GTX 750 Ti. Connect the dots, and it makes more sense why AMD wanted something between its Radeon R7 260X and Radeon R9 270.

Back to the Radeon R7 265.

When AMD introduced its Radeon R9 270, based on the Curaçao GPU (formerly named Pitcairn), all of the chip's 1280 shaders remained active, just as we came to expect from the Radeon HD 7870. Consequently, we didn't think that a cut-down version resembling the Radeon HD 7850 was happening. Necessity is the mother of invention though, and sure enough, the Radeon R7 265 sports the Radeon HD 7850's same configuration. Four of Curaçao/Pitcairn's Compute Units are disabled, leaving 16. All told, 1024 shaders and 64 texture units remain.

The GPU’s back-end is made up of eight render partitions able to process 32 pixels per cycle. Four dual-channel 64-bit memory controllers yield an aggregate 256-bit interface. For those of you who know your specs, those figures are identical to the Radeon R9 270 and 270X. If you don't, the table below should help with that. And because the R7 265's GDDR5 memory runs at the same frequency, peak memory bandwidth is shared across all three cards.


Radeon R7 260X
Radeon HD 7850Radeon R7 265
Radeon R9 270
Shader Cores
896
1024
10241280
Texture Units
56
646480
ROPs
16
32
3232
Fabrication process
28 nm28 nm
28 nm28 nm
Core Clock
1100 MHz860 MHz
Up to 925 MHz
925 MHz
Memory Clock
1625 MHz GDDR5
1200 MHz GDDR5
1400 MHz GDDR51400 MHz GDDR5
Memory Bus
128-bit
256-bit
256-bit256-bit
Memory Bandwidth
104.0 GB/s
153.6 GB/s
179.2 GB/s179.2 GB/s
Idle/Max Thermal
Design Power
115 W
130 W
150 W
150 W
Power Connectors:
1 x 6-pin1 x 6-pin
1 x 6-pin1 x 6-pin
Typical Price
$130 (Newegg)
EOL
$150
$230 (Newegg)

With all of that said, you can see AMD's Radeon R7 265 is an overclocked Radeon HD 7850 that employs a 900 MHz base clock rate, a 925 MHz PowerTune with Boost accelerated state, and a 1400 MHz memory frequency.

Rated for up to 1.89 TFLOPS of FP32 compute performance at its peak clock rate, the Radeon R7 265 falls a bit shy of the R7 260X, which hosts fewer active shaders, but runs at a more aggressive 1.1 GHz GPU frequency. Where the 260X compromises performance is on the back-end, which features half as many ROP partitions and a 128-bit memory bus. In shader-limited situations, the 260X should hang tight. But as you increase resolution and enable anti-aliasing, the 265's bandwidth should prove more valuable.

Did you notice that AMD prefaces the R7 265's clock rate with an "up to"? This really bit the company on the butt with its first batch of R9 290X and 290 boards sporting reference coolers. Claims of 1000 and 947 MHz, respectively, turned out to be much lower when the Hawaii-based cards got hot. However, the R7 265 we're testing is provided by Sapphire and includes the company's Dual-X thermal solution. It doesn't throttle back, even after running FurMark's stability test for just under an hour. We're not sure this will be the case for all Radeon R7 265s. However, we've managed to overclock the Curaçao/Pitcairn GPU higher without stability issues, so 925 MHz seems reasonable.

Because the GPU is a first-gen implementation of Graphics Core Next, the Radeon R7 265 doesn't offer any of the features introduced alongside AMD's R7 260X and R9 290/290X cards (like TrueAudio). In fact, if you'd like a refresher on the Curaçao/Pitcairn GPU's capabilities, check out AMD Radeon HD 7870 And 7850 Review: Pitcairn Gets Benchmarked.

The Sapphire Radeon R7 265

Up front, Sapphire's Radeon R7 265 bears the company's Dual-X cooler with a black-on-gray theme. The PCB is 7.75" x 4.5", similar to the company's Radeon HD 7790. 

The Curaçao/Pitcairn GPU is set to AMD's reference 925 MHz peak clock rate, while 2 GB of on-board GDDR5 operates at 1400 MHz.

The aluminum heat sink features two copper pipes and is cooled by a pair of 73 mm low-profile fans. A 150 W TDP is satisfied by a single six-pin auxiliary power connector, though that doesn't leave much headroom for overclocking.


There's also a single CrossFire bridge, implying support for the multi-GPU feature. Again, Pitcairn was one of AMD's first GCN-based processors, so it lacks the XDMA engine that allows the Radeon R9 290 and 290X to run in CrossFire without a bridge connecting the cards.

This particular model comes with dual-link DVI-I, DVI-D, full-sized DisplayPort, and full-sized HDMI outputs.

2. Test Setup And Benchmarks

We tested all of the cards in today's story with each company's latest beta drivers: Catalyst 14.1 beta 6 from AMD and 334.67 beta from Nvidia. Moreover, we used medium- to high-detail settings at 1920x1080 to give the Radeon R7 265 and its competition a realistic workload, which should strike a good balance between image quality and performance for this class of card. I'm also including screenshots to demonstrate how these detail levels appear in-game.


Test System
CPU
Intel Core i5-2550K (Sandy Bridge), Overclocked to 4.2 GHz @ 1.3 V
Motherboard
Asus P8Z77-V LX.
LGA 1155, Chipset: Intel Z77M
Networking
On-Board Gigabit LAN controller
Memory
Corsair Performance Memory, 4 x 4 GB, 1866 MT/s, CL 9-9-9-24-1T
Graphics
Sapphire Radeon R7 260X
1100 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1625 MHz (6500 MT/s)

XFX Radeon HD 7850
860 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1200 MHz (4800 MT/s)

Sapphire Radeon R7 265
925 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1400 MHz (5600 MT/s)

Reference Radeon R9 270
925 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1400 MHz (5600 MT/s)

Reference Nvidia GTX 650 Ti
925 MHz GPU, 1 GB DDR3 at 1350 MHz (5400 MT/s)

Reference Nvidia GTX 650 Ti Boost
980/1033 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1502 MHz (6008 MT/s)

Reference Nvidia GTX 660
980/1033 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1502 MHz (6008 MT/s)
Hard Drive
Samsung 840 Pro, 256 GB SSD, SATA 6Gb/s
Power
XFX PRO850W, ATX12V, EPS12V
Software and Drivers
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 8 Pro x64
DirectX
DirectX 11
Graphics Drivers
AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta 6, Nvidia GeForce 334.67 Beta

We've almost completely eliminated mechanical storage in the lab, and instead lean on solid-state drives to alleviate I/O-related bottlenecks. Samsung sent all of our offices 256 GB 840 Pros, so we standardize on these exceptional SSDs.

Naturally, discrete graphics cards require a substantial amount of stable power, so XFX sent along its PRO850W 80 PLUS Bronze-certified power supply. This modular PSU employs a single +12 V rail rated for 70 A. XFX claims that this unit provides 850 W of continuous power (not peak) at 50 degrees Celsius (a higher temperature than you'll find inside most enclosures).

Benchmark Configuration
3D Games
Metro: Last Light
Version 1.0.0.14, Built-in Benchmark
Grid 2
Version 1.8.85.8679, Built-in Benchmark Scene D6
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Version 1.05, Custom THG Benchmark, 40-Sec
Battlefield 4
Version 1.0.0.1, Custom THG Benchmark, 90-Sec
BioShock Infinite
Version 1.1.24.21018, Built-in Benchmark
3. Results: Battlefield 4

We begin with Battlefield 4. The Radeon R7 265 can handle this game's Ultra preset, but we dialed MSAA back from 4x to 2x, set AA Post to Medium, and used SSAO instead of the more demanding HDAO setting.

For the record, we also ran a full set of numbers with Mantle enabled on the AMD cards. However, the numbers we are seeing from an overclocked Core i5-based platform weren't what we were expecting. For now, we'll set the very-beta API aside for a performance and image quality analysis at a later date.

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The screenshot should be indicative of how good these settings look, even on mainstream hardware. AMD's new Radeon R7 265 performs well too, edging out Nvidia's GeForce GTX 660 and approaching the more expensive Radeon R9 270.

Unlike our average frame rate figures, when it comes to frame time variance, less is better. There are some spikes evident in our benchmark, though typically from lower-end boards.

4. Results: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is a demanding title. However, the Radeon R7 265 is able to muscle through the Normal detail settings with motion blur, FXAA, SSAO, god rays, and volumetric fog enabled without falling below 38 FPS.

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Note the tie between AMD's Radeon R7 260X and 265. As we noted on the first page, the 260X has fewer shaders running at higher clock rates, enabling better performance, in theory. With more demanding effects enabled, Assassin's Creed isn't pushing these cards' memory subsystems as hard, resulting in more parity between the GPUs than you might have expected.

Frame time variance is consistently low in this game, which is a good thing.

5. Results: Metro: Last Light

The Metro games are notoriously demanding. But the graphics cards we're testing at least allow us to use the DirectX 11 code path with Low motion blur, 16x anisotropic filtering, and the Normal tessellation setting switched on.

AMD's Radeon R7 265 maintains at least 35 FPS through the run, coming close to averaging 60.

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Nvidia's GeForce GTX 650 Ti is really the only card that drops under 30 FPS.

Frame time variance through our run is low for the most part. There are occasional spikes, which correspond to brief on-screen stuttering, but they're relatively few and far between.

6. Results: BioShock Infinite

BioShock Infinite is a great-looking game. But even set to its Ultra detail preset, AMD's Radeon R7 265 maintains more than 44 FPS through our benchmark run.

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All of the cards we tested play through this game at its maximum detail level smoothly. Nvidia's GeForce GTX 650 Ti sags to 29 FPS at the start of the benchmark, but still yields a pleasant experience.

Frame time variance is generally low, although there is some noise from the GeForce GTX 650 Ti and 650 Ti Boost. Then again, those figures stay under 5 ms for the most part.

7. Results: Grid 2

Although Grid 2 is a good-looking game, we know it to be more platform-bound than anything else. As a result, we're able to crank up the title's Ultra preset, enable soft ambient occlusion, and turn on 8x MSAA.

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The Radeon R7 265 never falls below 41 FPS at this maxed-out setting. Even Nvidia's GeForce GTX 650 Ti keeps its nose above playability, despite a couple of small dips below 30 FPS.

Aside from a couple of spikes, measured frame time variance is low in this game.

8. Power And Temperature Benchmarks

Given the Radeon R7 265's Curaçao GPU and clock rates, we expect the card to look a lot like AMD's Radeon R9 270 in our power consumption measurements.

Indeed, the Radeon R7 265 and R9 270 register almost exactly the same power use under a graphics load.

We're not testing a reference design from AMD, so the thermal measurements are more tied to Sapphire's Dual-X thermal solution than any other variable. In other words, other Radeon R7 265s will almost certainly demonstrate different behavior when they're fully utilized.

As far as this card goes, though, thermal performance is exceptional. Even during Battlefield 4 gameplay, it never crested 60 °C. Why is this so significant? Because the Radeon R7 265 employs PowerTune with Boost, maintaining 925 MHz necessitates favorable temperatures. A cooler that lets the GPU heat up is going to hurt performance as the card shifts down a notch to 900 MHz. In the Sapphire card's case, we couldn't get it to budget from 925 MHz, even with a long FurMark-based stress test.

9. Better Than Radeon HD 7850 Performance At $150? We Want To Believe...

Averaging the benchmark results across the tests we ran today, we get the following aggregate results. AMD's Radeon HD 7850 serves as our 100% baseline.

At least from a performance standpoint, the Radeon R7 265 is impressive-looking. It's a little bit slower than Nvidia's GeForce GTX 660, which shows up as low as $190 on Newegg, and it's almost perfectly between the Radeon R7 260X and R9 270. That's pretty much where we'd expect it to be. So far so good.

But performance isn't AMD's problem. The company has a number of compelling solutions in its portfolio, fully capable of contending with competition from Nvidia, despite their age. Shoot, the GPU at the heart of this new card was launched two years ago! Pricing and availability are what we're worried about.

At the $150 AMD is promising, its Radeon R7 265 offers impressive value. You would have had to pay $250 for these frame rates when the Radeon HD 7850 surfaced, and that was a good deal back in the day. What's not to like, right?

To begin, the Radeon R7 265 won't be available until the end of this month, according to AMD. The company also claimed the Radeon R7 250X would be available earlier this week, and we're still waiting. It introduced us to a $110 Radeon R7 260 back in December, and of the two examples for sale, the cheapest is $125. The Radeon R9 270 launched in November of last year at $180, and now sits in the $230 range. The Radeon R9 280X, which AMD pitched to us at $300, is now a $500 card. Don't even get us started on the R9 290 and 290X. 

In short, you'll have to pardon our skepticism that Radeon R7 265 will show up on time and at the price point AMD is claiming. We've seen fingers pointed at gun-shy add-in board partners, performance-thirsty cryptocurrency miners, price-gouging retailers, and foundries unable to keep up with supply. But at the end of the day, we're left wondering why AMD is setting prices if it can't control what you pay for its hardware? After piling praise onto the Radeon R9 280X at $300 and 290X at $550, it's our credibility on the line now, and we've been burnt too many times to give you guidance on a card you can't buy yet.

Let's assume for a second that the Radeon R7 265 does show up at $150 in February. At that price, it would dominate the sub-$200 segment. It'd make the GeForce GTX 660 much less appealing at $190. And it'd make the Radeon R7 260X look overpriced at ~$140. AMD knows this, and at least has a few models of the 260X marked down to $120 already, with the MSRP officially lowered to that price point today. That'd be a welcome bit of good news for gamers on a budget. As I mentioned, the 265's performance level used to cost $250 a couple of years ago.

But our little hypothetical situation is a snapshot of the market today. There are going to be additional cards launched into the same general vicinity before the Radeon R7 265 is even slated to go on sale. We can't yet say how that'll play out, but just knowing the landscape will change before you can buy R7 265 makes our thought experiment almost completely pointless.

I'm happy to see great 1080p performance pushed even further down under $200. If AMD does end up delivering the powerful Radeon R7 265 at $150 by the end of February, next month's Best Gaming Graphics Cards For The Money column should be an interesting one. Radeon R7 260X cards already selling for $120 shake things up as well. If you want something a little faster than the 260X, though, wait a couple of weeks and see how the sub-$200 space looks leading into March.