AMD R9 270X is Disappointing..

[geokilla]

Just looked at the specs and conclusion of a couple review sites for the R9 270X... Huge disappointment. AMD 7950, here I come! Based on the quick glimpse, it seems like these new GPUs are nothing but refreshes of existing high end 7000 series GPUs. It's just that the price got lowered, and minor tweaks were made to make them more efficient.

 

[XiandreX]

I understand where you are coming from and a lot of people see this.. but we were expecting this to happen. Like you said, they are essentially the same cards, rebranded with slight tweaks here and there.

The 280x from Asus looks rather appealing at its price point of $309, making the 770 at $400 all but a moot point.

 

[raghu78]

yeah the ASUS R9 280X DCII TOP is a steal for USD 309. edges ahead of the the GTX 770 at USD 90 less. now thats a amazing deal. :thumbsup:

as for R9 270X the problem comes from comparing with those HD 7950 cards selling at USD 200 - 220. both those prices are to clear stock and make way for newer SKUs like R9 280 (rebrand HD 7950) at USD 250. against the GTX 660, the R9 270X is very favourably positioned.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...523-amd-radeon-r9-270x-r7-260x-review-22.html

"Even after its drop to $179, the GTX 660 2GB provides very little in the way of actual competition; it struggles to achieve playable framerates while costing just $20 less than the R9 270X. "

 

[toyota]

lol we will have some cards that are rebadges of rebadges.

 

[mindbomb]

these cards are gonna be going up maxwell, so there probably will be future price cuts.
so, what im saying is that if you've held out this long without a 7950, you could probably hold out a little longer.

 

[toyota]

I have not thoroughly read the reviews so what happened to all the non x cards?

 

[ozzy702]

these cards are gonna be going up maxwell, so there probably will be future price cuts.
so, what im saying is that if you've held out this long without a 7950, you could probably hold out a little longer.

Maxwell is a long way out. We'll be looking at price cuts from both companies until they can afford 20nm.

 

[3DVagabond]

It would have been good if they could have improved efficiency enough to make it single 6pin. Important for people with smaller PSU. As it is right now, no replacement for the 7850 (or 7950 for that matter).

 

[Red Hawk]

The 270x just seems to be the 7870 with a bit of GPU turbo and faster memory. With that in mind it's not much of a disappointment, though it could simply be disappointing that AMD has not come out with new chips to replace Tahiti and Pitcairn.

 

[3DVagabond]

The 270x just seems to be the 7870 with a bit of GPU turbo and faster memory. With that in mind it's not much of a disappointment, though it could simply be disappointing that AMD has not come out with new chips to replace Tahiti and Pitcairn.

I was hoping for a bit more. Even GCN1.1 improvements plus the new audio would have been a lot better.

 

[Attic]

If AMD dumps the 7950 and forces folks to choose between the 270x and 280x it would be for shame.

7950 is the king of price/performance and the 3gb mem is another sweetener.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I have not thoroughly read the reviews so what happened to all the non x cards?

I'm wondering that as well.

Unless AMD will just completely phase out the 7950 and 7850 and let prices drop after the 7xxx series are all gone.

 

[RussianSensation]

yeah the ASUS R9 280X DCII TOP is a steal for USD 309. edges ahead of the the GTX 770 at USD 90 less. now thats a amazing deal. :thumbsup:

Yup the after-market R9 280X cards look good from a price/performance perspective.

These cards at $299-309 are making both the 760 and 770s irrelevant without NV's price drops.

"The Radeon R9 280X comes at an interesting time. DICE, publishers of the smash-hit "Battlefield" online multiplayer shooter franchise, announced that the recommended system requirements for the upcoming "Battlefield 4," prescribes graphics cards with at least 3 GB of video memory. That disqualifies the likes of the $410 GeForce GTX 770, and even NVIDIA’s flagship for last year, the GeForce GTX 680. Even if it’s just a very artificial requirement, it could have a psychological impact on buyers, channeling them to either the R9 280X, or the now $220-ish HD 7950."
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_280X_Gaming/1.html

I would buy a 7950 over R9 270X before they are all sold out. :thumbsup:

 

[lehtv]

To be fair, GTX 760 is 85% of the performance for 85% of the price, lacking some VRAM but also consuming 40W less power, and some prefer SLI support instead of Crossfire for understandable reasons. I don't think that makes the 760 irrelevant, it's bang on in the middle between 270x and 280x in terms of price and performance.

The 770 is irrelevant though unless it drops to about $325, or $375 for the 4GB model.

 

[ams23]

The HD 7970 OC edition makes the R9 280X irrelevant, because one gets equal performance, same featureset, lower price, and game bundle included.

For the games that favor NVIDIA's GPU architecture, the GTX 770 will be noticeably faster. And right now one can get a Superclocked EVGA GTX 770 for $399 w/ MIR and with a free copy of Batman Arkham Origins, which is at least a much better deal than GTX 680 which had lower performance, higher price and no game bundle in comparison.

 

[yacoub]

The HD 7970 OC edition makes the R9 280X irrelevant, because one gets equal performance, same featureset, lower price, and game bundle included.

Bingo.

And the 270X not even having 3GB VRAM or the core of the 7950 is simply disappointing, as that is currently available for $199 or less. So the 270X is, without question, a step backwards in bang-for-the-buck. It is a demonstration of a desire or intent to keep the $199 price point neutered. They could easily have made the 270X a re-badged 7950 instead and finally brought 3GB and solid specs to the $199 price point. But their desire not to do so seems like a desire to force people up to the $300 price point just to be able to play current gen games at proper settings and the full resolution of their displays. That's just lame Marketing-department-driven behavior. So get those 7950s while you can, as they'll give you better than 270X performance for less cost.

This 270X-280X lineup is basically "here's something new and flashy we hope you'll buy rather than the much more appropriately priced 7950 and 7970, just so we can make extra revenue off of the sales due to the more mature manufacturing process, since we're basically using two-year-old tech now and calling it new".

 

[BUnit1701]

I was hoping for a bit more. Even GCN1.1 improvements plus the new audio would have been a lot better.

This. 2 years and they are only introducing 2 new cards (290 and 290X which we havent seen yet) Pathetic. Should have been all GCN1.1 versions. Was thinking about selling my 7950 to move up, but since I can't get an actual upgrade, I guess my money will go elsewhere.

 

[tviceman]

these cards are gonna be going up maxwell, so there probably will be future price cuts.
so, what im saying is that if you've held out this long without a 7950, you could probably hold out a little longer.

No one knows when Maxwell is coming. There are rumors that it will debut on 28nm, but presentations and conference calls by Nvidia in the past has explicitly stated Maxwell will be on 20nm.

I do think, however, that Nvidia will beat AMD to the first consumer 20nm GPU available for sale.

 

[ruhtraeel]

The HD 7970 OC edition makes the R9 280X irrelevant, because one gets equal performance, same featureset, lower price, and game bundle included.

For the games that favor NVIDIA's GPU architecture, the GTX 770 will be noticeably faster. And right now one can get a Superclocked EVGA GTX 770 for $399 w/ MIR and with a free copy of Batman Arkham Origins, which is at least a much better deal than GTX 680 which had lower performance, higher price and no game bundle in comparison.

I'd say the R9 280X is pretty much exactly the same as the 7970. From the reviews I've been reading, sites have OC'ed the 280X to around 1150 max, but my Sapphire 7970 can get 1100 even under standard voltage (I have mine set to 1.1, up from the default 1.05, but the average seems to be around 1.2)

The price seems to be the main factor here, as they are saying the MSRP of custom cards is still only around $320 (my 7970 costed $344 after tax and shipping)

 

[RussianSensation]

The HD 7970 OC edition makes the R9 280X irrelevant, because one gets equal performance, same featureset, lower price, and game bundle included.

Never Settle game bundle is included with R9 280X. Some after-market versions of R9 280X have improved their coolers vs. the 7970Ghz.

The Asus DCUII TOP is a much improved cooler vs. the 7970 Asus DCU model. It is actually identical to the cooler used on the GTX780 Asus DCUII.

Sapphire has the new triple fan cooler

The Gigabyte Windforce is improved over the previous revision.

There is also the UEFI bios for some of these R9 280X cards which will allow them to boot faster into Windows.

For the games that favor NVIDIA's GPU architecture, the GTX 770 will be noticeably faster.

The same applies for games where GCN is faster, making your statement odd to say the least. This is why we look at average performance.

And right now one can get a Superclocked EVGA GTX 770 for $399 w/ MIR and with a free copy of Batman Arkham Origins, which is at least a much better deal than GTX 680 which had lower performance, higher price and no game bundle in comparison.

Even if you assign $50 value for that game, the 770 is $50 overpriced. No point in comparing 770 to 680 since 680 has long been discontinued. What matters is today's market situation.

This. 2 years and they are only introducing 2 new cards (290 and 290X which we havent seen yet) Pathetic. Should have been all GCN1.1 versions. Was thinking about selling my 7950 to move up, but since I can't get an actual upgrade, I guess my money will go elsewhere.

There are no viable upgrades from AMD or NV from 7950/7970/670/680 OC without going for R9 290 or 780.

For people who haven't upgraded, they can now get 7950 for $199-220, R9 280X/7970Ghz level for $299. When 7950 came out nearly 2 years ago, after-market versions like MSI TwinFrozr or PowerColor PCS+ were $469-489 USD!

I think it's more or less understood that for people with 7950-680 OC level cards, the next upgrade is either in 12 months once 780/R9 290X drop in price OR when 20nm cards arrive.

 

[Erenhardt]

This 270X-280X lineup is basically "here's something new and flashy we hope you'll buy rather than the much more appropriately priced 7950 and 7970.

No. It is more like: Here is the "new" stuff. It is more costly, but it is "new"! Or you can go with the 2 yr old card if you want - 25% discount because we are clearing shelves for a "new" stock.

Looking back at the gtx760 and gtx770 one could wonder why slapping a new sticker on the old product makes such a difference to some people?

 

[96Firebird]

Once 7970 Ghz is discontinued, my statement is true.

No point in comparing 770 to 680 since 680 has long been discontinued. What matters is today's market situation.

Shwat?

 

[ams23]

@ RussianSensation: AMD is providing the same performance and featureset (R9 280X vs. 7970 OC edition) or worse performance and featureset (R9 270X vs. 7950 OC), all at a higher price and with zero game bundle included. So for those who play games that are more favorable to AMD's GPU architecture, the 79xx OC editions would arguably be a much better choice. And for those who play games that are more favorable to NVIDIA's GPU architecture (including Batman Arkham Origins), GTX 7xx OC editions would arguably be a much better choice.

 

[Techhog]

I'm satisfied with my 7950 purchase, and it's not even going to be in a system until the end of next week.

 

[Erenhardt]

@ RussianSensation: AMD is providing the same performance and featureset (R9 280X vs. 7970 OC edition) or worse performance and featureset (R9 270X vs. 7950 OC), all at a higher price and with zero game bundle included.

From what I see on retailers sites, all R9 and R7 260 come with never settle free boundles.

The trick why old HD7000 series is better buy is:
When you manufacture something that is evolving every year or two you need to make sure you get rid of the previous generation as soon as possible. You can't give better value with new products, because you will be left with the old ones for good. It is almost impossible to change all stock in day 1. You can't sell every piece of last gen 1 day before next gen comes out, because that could lead to missed sales and empty shelves. You need to put old next to new and make sure some people will go with better value of old product, and some will go for a "new and shiny" overpriced product.