AMD is introducing a handful of new model names today, based on existing GPUs. Do the company's price adjustments make this introduction newsworthy, or will the excitement need to wait for its upcoming Radeon R9 290 and 290X, based on fresh silicon?
Back in 2000, a gentleman by the name of Brian Hentschel called my dorm room at UCLA to ask my opinion of brand names. Brian was a marketing manager at ATI, and the company was looking for something catchy to succeed its Rage family. I had owned every single Rage-based desktop graphics product up until that point, and was pumped to provide feedback on the company's next-gen nomenclature.
Thirteen years later, I cannot remember the other options ATI was throwing around, but I distinctly recall liking Radeon least of all. Clearly I have no future in marketing, because I’ve been reviewing Radeon-branded cards ever since.
With its latest generation, AMD maintains the Radeon legacy, but changes everything that comes after. According to the company’s PR team, the new naming scheme makes positioning easier—and I’d have to agree. Our own writers were mistyping combinations of Radeon HD 7990, 7970, 7790, and so on. Now, we have the high-end Radeon R9 and mainstream R7 families, which are sub-divided into three-digit models suggesting performance levels.
Say Goodbye To The Old Names And Hello To The Old GPUs
At its press day in Hawaii, two weeks ago, AMD publically announced the Radeon R7 250, R7 260X, R9 270X, R9 280X, R9 290, and R9 290X. There’s also an R7 240 the company didn’t mention. How on earth will you ever memorize all of the corresponding specifications of each card in a timely manner? It’s easy: although we’re looking at new model names, all of the products AMD is talking about today employ GPUs already found in the Radeon HD 7000-series line-up.
Take that R9 270X, for example. With 1280 shaders spread across 20 compute units, it employs the same Pitcairn GPU introduced on the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition in March of last year. Or how about the R9 280X? Its 2048 shaders, 1 GHz engine frequency, and 384-bit memory bus should remind you of the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, sporting the Tahiti GPU.
Let's at least keep it real, guys. These aren't new GPUs.
Of course, taking existing technology, tweaking it a bit, and giving it a shiny new-sounding name is an old practice. Much of the Radeon HD 8000 family is a replicate of the 7000s, shipped off to OEMs in the hope that folks buying tier-one machines don’t know any better. And don’t think I’m picking on AMD here. Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 700M series has Fermi-based models in it with core configurations dating back almost three years. The GeForce GTX 770 and 760 employ the same GK104 GPU found at the top of the 600-series. This sort of thing seems to happen a lot in the graphics market.
The good news for today is that familiar GPUs make our job quite a bit easier. Doubly-so because the two products based on never-before-seen silicon, R9 290 and 290X, still aren’t ready for their public debut. This leaves us with the remainder of AMD’s R9 and R7 line-ups, well-known (and tested) technology, and price drops across the board. Positioning becomes the main focus of today's discussion, then.

Just don't be quick to marginalize what AMD is doing. Most Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition cards currently sell for somewhere around $375. R9 280X is going to debut at $300. The GeForce GTX 770 that Nvidia launched to replace its GTX 680 still sells for $400. Remember when the original 7970 sold for $550? Boy, that escalated quickly.
Let’s take a closer look at the R9 280X—for now, the highest-end board in AMD’s re-branded portfolio.
- Tahiti, Pitcairn, And Bonaire Show Up For An Encore
- R9 280X: The Tahiti GPU’s Second (Or Third?) Lease On Life
- R9 270X: Pitcairn Gets A Little Boost
- R7 260X: TrueAudio’s First Outing On The Back Of Bonaire
- TrueAudio: Dedicated Resources For Sound Processing
- Display Technology
- Test Setup And Software
- Results: Arma III
- Results: Battlefield 3
- Results: BioShock Infinite
- Results: Crysis 3
- Results: Grid 2
- Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Results: Tomb Raider
- CAD: AutoCAD 2013 And Inventor 2013
- OpenGL: Maya 2013 And LightWave
- OpenCL: Bitmining, OpenCL, And RatGPU
- Power Consumption
- Clock Rate And Temperature
- Fan Speed And Noise
- Old GPUs Ride Again, But That’s Not A Bad Thing

I wrote one of the least flattering GTX 780 stories out there. I only identified a couple of situations where a Titan made any sense at all. And although the 760 *did* change the balance at $250, that card still didn't get an award. I liked the 770 for the simple fact that it delivered better-than-680 performance for close to $100 less.
The rest of AMD's new line-up is a lot like what exists already. Again, the 7870 is a better value than 270X. So what are you getting worked up over? The fact that I'm pointing out these aren't new GPUs? They're not.
Best to hold out till the reviews on the R9-290X I guess. But considering the specs I hope for at least 20% performance increases over a 7970.
The MSI R9 280X Gaming at $299 appears to outperform the GTX 770 at 1600P and is within margin of error at 1080P according to Techpowerup. Not a bad value at $100 less and still overclocks well:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_280X_Gaming/26.html
Best to hold out till the reviews on the R9-290X I guess. But considering the specs I hope for at least 20% performance increases over a 7970.
Are the days of (nearly) annual simultaneous full line GPU launches from $100-500 with a dual GPU chip to follow at $750-1000 really over?
I wrote one of the least flattering GTX 780 stories out there. I only identified a couple of situations where a Titan made any sense at all. And although the 760 *did* change the balance at $250, that card still didn't get an award. I liked the 770 for the simple fact that it delivered better-than-680 performance for close to $100 less.
The rest of AMD's new line-up is a lot like what exists already. Again, the 7870 is a better value than 270X. So what are you getting worked up over? The fact that I'm pointing out these aren't new GPUs? They're not.
That goes to you too Mr. NVIDIA
you won't want to. the 260 is more expensive, and you'll only get 1gb of it's memory in a xfire with a 7790. (in xfire/sli, the video memory is duplicated on both cards... not shared... so the total memory of the xfire/sli setup is equal to the smallest total mememory on each of the cards. so a 2gb + 1 gb gpu in xfire will have basically 1gb of vram for the xfire setup.
you won't want to. the 260 is more expensive, and you'll only get 1gb of it's memory in a xfire with a 7790. (in xfire/sli, the video memory is duplicated on both cards... not shared... so the total memory of the xfire/sli setup is equal to the smallest total mememory on each of the cards. so a 2gb + 1 gb gpu in xfire will have basically 1gb of vram for the xfire setup.
the true audio thing is still a mystery. We have to see if this thing really takes off or not. If this thing is at least has a just small success like physyx, I guess I wont mind shelling out just extra $10-20 for it.
the 7970/r9-280x is not competing in the 770's price bracket anymore. the 770 is 400 min... until that price comes down reviewing it against the 7970 would make as much sense as reviewing a 7950 against a gtx 650.
What retailer is doing this deal? I've been holding out to upgrade my 5850 for a while now and a pair of these would be a nice little (gigantic) upgrade
It feels like the price per pixel (in games at a given setting) has stayed the same for a while despite the increase in average display resolutions. Which would equate to gaming getting more and more expensive if you like to max the settings. I don't know if this is AMD/NVidia's fault or the game developers fault or both but it's kind of annoying.