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

Name: Test Setup And Benchmarks - Radeon R7 240 And 250: Our Sub-$100 Gaming Card Round-Up
Author: Don Woligroski

by Don Woligroski January 29, 2014 at 1:00 AM

98 Comments

Test Setup And Benchmarks

Because we want a sense of the entire sub-$100 graphics card market, we're generating two sets of benchmarks. For the first set, we're dropping detail settings and resolutions to the point where very low-cost cards can contend (down to a minimum of 1280x720). The next set is at 1920x1080 at more demanding detail settings.

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 (notably higher than the inside of most enclosures).

		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	XFX Radeon R7 240 DDR3 730/750 MHz GPU, 2 GB DDR3 at 900 MHz (1800 MT/s) XFX Radeon R7 250 GDDR5 1000/1050 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1150 MHz (4600 MT/s) Sapphire Radeon HD 7730 GDDR5 800 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1125 MHz (4500 MT/s) Reference Radeon HD 6670 GDDR5 800 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1000 MHz (4000 MT/s) Gigabyte Radeon HD 6670 DDR3 800 MHz GPU, 1 GB DDR3 at 900 MHz (1600 MT/s) Reference AMD Radeon HD 7750 800 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1125 MHz (4500 MT/s) Gigabyte Radeon HD 7770 1000 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1125 MHz (4500 MT/s) Zotac GeForce GT 630 GDDR5 810 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 900 MHz (3600 MT/s) Reference Nvidia GT 640 900 MHz GPU, 1 GB DDR3 at 891 MHz (1782 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 13.11 Beta 9.5, Nvidia GeForce 331.93 Beta

Benchmark Configuration
3D Games
Metro: Last Light	Version 1.0.0.0, DirectX 10, Built-in Benchmark
Grid 2	Version 1.6.89.06, Version 1.5.26.05, 25-Sec. Fraps
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag	Version 1.04, Custom THG Benchmark, 60-Sec. Fraps
Battlefield 4	Version 1.2, Direct X 11, Built-in Benchmark, 60-Sec. Fraps
BioShock Infinite	Version 1.0.1441711, Built-in Benchmark, Fraps

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Don Woligroski

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98 comments

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Hazly1979

This card is slower than HD 7750AMD is playing [removed] now for sub par $100

Watch the language - G
emad_ramlawi

No need to read the review, those parts are [removed]HD 7750 or the new Nvidia GTX 750 for the WIN

Watch the language - G
blackmagnum

Just buy a bigger PSU and be done with these poor performance-for-the-dollar/watt cards.
tridon

These discrete cards that squeeze frames out with very little power drain are great. I recently bought one such cheap AMD-card for my fiancée when she wanted to play Guild Wars 2 with me. Having an aging low cost workstation with a weak power supply "Made in Hell", cards like these were the only option. At least without having to upgrade and tweak other parts of the PC. (Yes I'm lazy [and like to save money]).Don Woligroski: For the few(?) that are in the same situation as me it would be great to se an efficiency chart. Like average frames pr. average watt usage through a benchmark, or something in that vein.
Martell1977

My brother has a HP s3500f slimline computer that I thought the R7 240 might work well in (at least better than the Geforce 6150se it has now). Problem is he has a 250w PSU, all the R7 240's list 400w minimum and it seems the only place to get one under $75 is eBay($43, new). 400w seems awfully high for such a low end card...
cleeve

421295 said:

My brother has a HP s3500f slimline computer that I thought the R7 240 might work well in (at least better than the Geforce 6150se it has now). Problem is he has a 250w PSU, all the R7 240's list 400w minimum and it seems the only place to get one under $75 is eBay($43, new). 400w seems awfully high for such a low end card...

A 400W is overkill if you're running a power-efficient CPU.

Look at the results, the most this system puilled with the R7 240 is 122 Watts under load. That's the whole system, with an overclocked Core i5-2500K!

A good 250W PSU should be fine. AMD is kind of recommending overkill here, but they do that to protect people from poor quality PSUs. A 250W HP shouldn't be a problem as long as the platform isn't power hungry.
cats_Paw

Cleeve.... not true:http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_hd_7750_and_7770_review,7.htmlA stressed 7770 Requires at least a 400W good PSU (Note that 400W DOES NOT mean 400W on the 12V rail, but 400W in total. If you do that math in a 250W supply you get a lot less power on the 12V rail, who knows maybe 170... Also remmber that the GPU needs a fixed amount of power in a defined amount of cables. This means that if the PSU is not good, it wont be able to juice the GPU well enought).
Sakkura

In Metro: Last Light, the GT 640 gets exactly the same FPS and frame time variance at both 720p and 1080p. It looks like you accidentally input the data from one benchmark run in both places.

*EDIT BY EDITOR*

You're absolutely right! We fixed the charts, thanks for catching that!
Sakkura

151198 said:

Cleeve.... not true:http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_hd_7750_and_7770_review,7.htmlA stressed 7770 Requires at least a 400W good PSU (Note that 400W DOES NOT mean 400W on the 12V rail, but 400W in total. If you do that math in a 250W supply you get a lot less power on the 12V rail, who knows maybe 170... Also remmber that the GPU needs a fixed amount of power in a defined amount of cables. This means that if the PSU is not good, it wont be able to juice the GPU well enought).

A good 250W power supply will have 18-20 amps on the 12V rail, which is fine for the R7 240.

I don't know why you bring up the 7770, it clearly draws a lot more power than the R7 240.
InvalidError

Where do you get that 400W figure from that Guru3D article? The highest measured figure in there says: "System Wattage with GPU in FULL Stress = 231W" and further down they say they estimate the board's power to max out at ~86W which is just above 7A.That would be power measured at the wall which includes PSU losses... and their test system includes water pump for their OC'd i7-965, cold-cathode lighting and a bunch of other unnecessary stuff most low-end systems would not have that brings their idle power up to a whopping 155W instead of the 50-80W range for typical for current Intel-based mainstream setups.
boytitan2

Thing is while the 7770 offers better performance it also offers a higher power consumption meaning 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.
PunchGrinder

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/
digiex

How about R7 240 DDR3 vs R7 240 DDR5 vs A10 Kaveri?
lowguppy

The 7750 maintains a solid 10% edge over the R7 250, keeping it's crown as the most powerful low-profile, no extra power GPU on the market. With no fab shrinks expected until fall this doesn't look likely to change. Even if the R7 260 matches it in shaders it is unlikely to get much of an edge without adding external power.
blubbey

Hopefully with 20nm coming the 7750 and 7770 will be at the 340 and 350 positions respectively. That'd be a massive increase in value.
cleeve

151198 said:

Cleeve.... not true:http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_hd_7750_and_7770_review,7.htmlA stressed 7770 Requires at least a 400W good PSU (Note that 400W DOES NOT mean 400W on the 12V rail, but 400W in total. If you do that math in a 250W supply you get a lot less power on the 12V rail, who knows maybe 170... Also remmber that the GPU needs a fixed amount of power in a defined amount of cables. This means that if the PSU is not good, it wont be able to juice the GPU well enought).

We were talking about the R7 240, not the 7770.
InvalidError

21257 said:

We were talking about the R7 240, not the 7770.

Even the 7770 is only a ~86W card... just barely high enough to require a 6pin PCIe power connection.
gopher1369

@blackmagnum, and how would you do that whilst staying under $100, exactly?
adbat

I just wonder why are there no tests at lower resolution? Games look a lot better when they run smooth in lower res with a bit of smoothing then choppy in HD.
Sakkura

238796 said:

I just wonder why are there no tests at lower resolution? Games look a lot better when they run smooth in lower res with a bit of smoothing then choppy in HD.

What? What the heck are you talking about?

Quote:

Because we want a sense of the entire sub-$100 graphics card market, we're generating two sets of benchmarks. For the first set, we're dropping detail settings and resolutions to the point where very low-cost cards can contend (down to a minimum of 1280x720). The next set is at 1920x1080 at more demanding detail settings.
lilcinw

A square PCB with rounded corners? Do I smell a lawsuit?I like those flat black shrouds that XFX is using.
vertexx

Thanks for the article. This really looks like a step backward for this segment of the market.

My main question is for AMD: What is the logic of crowding a market with 3 GPUs that provide poorer price/performance than your previous generation and that compete directly with Kaveri? But really, this is par for the course for AMD product management of late.

So you have nothing in this line-up that is better than the Sapphire low profile 7750, that was one of the most well received GPUs on Newegg over the last 18 months. It's just not available now, and there is no suitable replacement.

For me, going to this segment of the market is typically driven by power and/or form factor requirements. So, I may need a passive GPU for an HTPC build or a low profile GPU for a uATX or ITX slim build. You really don't see any of that innovation here. The only thing positive I've seen is the low profile dual slot R7 240 available, but you only have one ITX case on the market that takes advantage of that, and the R7 240 is quite frankly disappointing in its performance.

Here is hoping that NVIDIA takes advantage of AMDs bumbling of its lead in this segment. I am not an NVIDIA fan - I just want good progress in each segment of the market. But I'm sure NVIDIA could produce a low-profile card, that is powered by the motherboard PCIE slot only, with performance somewhere in between a 7750 and 7790.

Edit: Turns out the Sapphire LP 7750 is back (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202002) - last week when I was looking for it for a build, it was no-where to be found.
vertexx

And what is up Tom's Hardware with the comment submission within the article post? Whenever I submit comments within an article, your website is mashing any line-breaks together so it looks like crap. I'm having to go into the forum section to edit the post - a real PITA......
zipspyder

I have the VisionTek R250, which was purchased at Best Buy with a free Xmas gift card. I'm pretty impressed how fast it is gaming on my TV at 1366x768. It overclocks like a champ as well, although limited in AMD's control panel. 1080P might be a stretch but anything lower and its golden...