The rumors were true, folks. We heard whisperings of an October 8 release/NDA expiration and it looks like those rumors were true. The reviews are here and announcements from graphics cards makers are coming thick and fast. Already we've seen press releases from Asus, MSI, Club 3D, VTX3D, Sapphire, and PowerColor, and that list is only set to grow.
Announced two weeks ago, AMD's Hawaii silicon not brings new cards but a new naming scheme. The company is ditching its old Radeon HD XXXX series naming structure and instead adopting a new one that will focus on 'families' of cards (in this case the R7 and R9) sub-divided into three digit models representing performance levels.
If this sounds a bit familiar, it's because Nvidia did the exact same thing back in 2008. The company revealed plans to simplify its product range so that people who weren't as familiar with its range could better understand what they were buying.
New naming scheme aside, AMD's Hawaii silicon brings the R7 250, R7 260X, R9 270X, R9 280X, R9 290, and R9 290X to market. Today's review covers all but the R9 290 and R9 290X, which, as our own Chris Angelini points out in his review, all 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," Chris writes. "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."
To read Chris' full review, hit up AMD Radeon R9 280X, R9 270X, And R7 260X: Old GPUs, New Names.
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