R260/270/280/290/290x Review thread

[BallaTheFeared]

This generation has been a joke since the start, this isn't changing anything.

And with 290x "rumored" to be between the 780 stock and Titan for $600 nothing changes AMD just finally gets to put their hand in a cookie jar that has been looted for a year already.


"Meh"

 

[Silverforce11]

HD7970GE is faster than regular R9 280X as you can see in Anandtech. So lets not sugarcoat it anymore. Less for more is what AMD wanted.

Doesn't matter since custom 280X are ~$300, on par with the 770 for $100 less.

Frankly, nobody expected anything but a rebadge and thus identical results. Its rather amazing they managed to cut power use by a significant amount, @TPU and [H] reviews, its a drop of 30W on load, not too shabby considering these custom cards are faster than the Ghz ed.

 

[Silverforce11]

This generation has been a joke since the start, this isn't changing anything.

And with 290x "rumored" to be between the 780 stock and Titan for $600 nothing changes AMD just finally gets to put their hand in a cookie jar that has been looted for a year already.


"Meh"

Meh indeed.

I really hope the 290 non X version is somewhat decently priced. It could well end up be the new 7950 of this "gen", amazing perf/$ with a good OC.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

This cemented my decision to go with the ps4 instead of pc gaming. A rebadge at already available prices and you want me to come $300 out of pocket? lol sure... I don't know about you high rollers but in my world $300+ still means something. I'm not giving that much for a rebadge and a facelift. I'm actually excited for the ps4 and the available games coming out. I was bored to tears reading about this rebadge card with a pretty makeover.

 

[Genx87]

Be nice if this forces Nvidia's hand to drop the price of the 770 or 760. But this was a meh launch. A few more % for the same price. Nothing earth shattering. Lets see what the 290 brings us.

 

[Haserath]

The graph shows 28nm to have lower price than 40nm. It simple saying that 20 and 14nm will not have lower prices than 28nm.
Also, longer cycles help lower the prices. Just take Tahiti (HD7970) die for example, it will be in production for 3 years instead of 12-14 months. Same for NVs GK104 and 110. After two years in production, you expect to have made all the money you spend on RD and more. Now you pocket the extra you made and you can lower the prices because Manufacturing cost is also lower.
What used to be a 12-14 months return of investment now becomes more than 24 months periods. That also brings RD cost lower or you can spend more for a longer time. If i remember correctly, NV spend 2Bil for the Kepler family. They clearly knew they are going to need more than 1-2 years period to have a RoI.

28nm has a lower price per transistor, but they have more transistors= More cost still.

They also need to maximize profit over time. A longer cycle means pricing for technology falls more slowly. Before, pricing would fall quickly to sell more product before a new node came out.

We still have at least 9 months before a GPU on 20nm comes out. They have to sell product more slowly or make more on it to keep money flowing.

 

[Teizo]

I still think the R280X will be a valuable purchase, given it's comparable performance to the 7970GHz edition, at a slightly cheaper price, with additional features enabled. Sure, it's a rebadge, but still a win for the consumer.

At this point, I really fail to see how anyone can justify spending the extra money on a GTX770 or 760 for gaming purposes. (You can leave the typical CUDA and PhysX arguments out of this.)

Edit: Also, TR's shortbread has reviews in no small amount.

Edit #2: The ASUS CoolTech fan really has me impressed. [To me] This helps explain the tremendously quiet operation and low load temperatures along with the larger heatpipe diameters.

The 760 clearly is way ahead of the 270X, and is $50 cheaper than the 280X. So, it's not a bad value at all imho. My cards overclock to the same level as a 280X/770. The price dump of the 7950 poses a bit of a threat, but the heat/power consumption/noise levels are better on the 760 by far.

The 770 is what got blown out of the water, especially with the MSI Gaming and Asus DirectCu cards. Nvidia needs to just discontinue the 2gb version @ $399 and sell only the 4gb version for $329 to save face.

 

[Attic]

Not impressed with performance. For me this release highlights the out of orbit pricing from nVidia.

I'll be waiting for 20nm it looks like. Best deal out there now is the 7950 or 7850 with the 3 and 2 AAA free game bundles. The 280x at $300 is a no brainer vs nvidias 770gtx, but so what. 7970 for $300 over two years after release is meh.

The 7950 going for under $200 with rebate crushes the 270x. The 7850 2gb for $125 after rebate crushes the 260x. Not even including the batter game bundle with the years old tech.

Hrmpf.... I mean nVidia isn't even in the game with their pricing, but I'd have liked to have seen improvement from AMD instead of treading water at best from them.

Seriously, come on. Lame.

 

[Genx87]

Those 7000 series cards will be cheaper for now. But eventually the stock will run out.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Are there no 280 and 270 (both non x) planned?

If there aren't I can see both the 280X and 270X substantially drop price once the 7950 and 7850 are cleared.

 

[yacoub]

This is looking like it trades blows with a 770. $300 is nice I suppose, but I feel barely being faster than the 7970 makes this a bit of a dud. At least, until the 7970 stock dries up.

Precisely. Grab a 7970 at a good price (they've been as low as $240 from what I've seen) and enjoy owning a card just as fast and at the price it should have been at launch. 🙂

 

[yacoub]

This cemented my decision to go with the ps4 instead of pc gaming.

😕 How does that make any sense? It's still faster than the hardware in either console and will provide you the best fps gaming experience with a keyboard and mouse.

Sounds more like you had your mind made up to get a console and are trying to position this news as a justification for it, even though it doesn't fit that role at all.

 

[n0x1ous]

While the launch today is unexciting, the actual performance you get from 280x for $300 is really good for anyone who hasnt moved to this generation yet. I mean the 770 is a bad joke for $400 - I cant believe nvidia hasnt dropped the price on it.

 

[B-Riz]

Underwhelming.

But, drivers keep getting better, which is good.

All this tells me is that CF 7950 SEEMS like a good idea.

Better off getting a 7870 XT (Tahiti LE) or a 7950; best values right now...

 

[DarkKnightDude]

280x for 300 dollars is a massive steal.

 

[24601]

Underwhelming.

But, drivers keep getting better, which is good.

All this tells me is that CF 7950 SEEMS like a good idea.

Better off getting a 7870 XT (Tahiti LE) or a 7950; best values right now...

AMD has obviously left anyone not using a 290x/290 holding the bag on Crossfire.

The fact that they are most definitely physically different in their implementation of crossfire basically guarantees that they give two shits about the people running anything else.

 

[tviceman]

Seems like innovation has halted and the 770's really need a price cut. Nothing else to say.

 

[iiiankiii]

Price gouging generation. Both Nvidia and AMD are out for blood. Rebadges from both sides. I guess a die shrink is the only way to get a real performance increase. $600+ for a GPU is a joke for a 30% increase in performance. No thank you. I'm sitting out this generation.

Side note: 7950 is the best bang for the buck right now. That's THE card to get this generation.

 

[ICDP]

Seems like innovation has halted and the 770's really need a price cut. Nothing else to say.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[B-Riz]

AMD has obviously left anyone not using a 290x/290 holding the bag on Crossfire.

The fact that they are most definitely physically different in their implementation of crossfire basically guarantees that they give two shits about the people running anything else.

Yeah, is hard to justify buying another 7950 without knowing performance of the future driver with "THE FIX" in it.

Will be bummed if the driver releases after the cheap 7950's have dried up and getting a cheap 7950 from fleabay becomes a crap shoot.

 

[B-Riz]

Price gouging generation. Both Nvidia and AMD are out for blood. Rebadges from both sides. I guess a die shrink is the only way to get a real performance increase. $600+ for a GPU is a joke for a 30% increase in performance. No thank you. I'm sitting out this generation.

Side note: 7950 is the best bang for the buck right now. That's THE card to get this generation.

I think the only thing this review does is accelerate the purchasing decisions of people who were waiting to see solid numbers, they will get the 7950 or 7970, which offers about the same performance as R9 280x, but do not have to wait until Oct. 11th to get it...

 

[Rvenger]

AMD has obviously left anyone not using a 290x/290 holding the bag on Crossfire.

The fact that they are most definitely physically different in their implementation of crossfire basically guarantees that they give two shits about the people running anything else.

What are you talking about? Did you hear what Brent said?

Frame Pacing is a software solution, it will remain a software solution for the R7 and R9 series.

The only re-brand that has TruAudio is the 260X because it is GCN 1.1.

 

[ams23]

I think the only thing this review does is accelerate the purchasing decisions of people who were waiting to see solid numbers, they will get the 7950 or 7970, which offers about the same performance as R9 280x, but do not have to wait until Oct. 11th to get it...

It is not only that, but HD 7950 and 7970 OC editions have a lower price, same (or even better) featureset, and game bundle included, while providing the same (or even better) performance as R9 270X and R9 280X, which makes R9 270X and R9 280X irrelevant at this point in time.

 

[24601]

What are you talking about? Did you hear what Brent said?

"Frame Pacing" is AMD's trade name for dynamic frame-rate limiting.

This is not a "solution." It's at most a band-aid.

Nvidia doesn't do "Frame Pacing" as AMD defines the term.

They (AMD) plan on eliminating their end of the problem about non-synchronized frames by bypassing their buggy crossfire bridge and going purely across the PCI-express bus.

None of their older cards are designed to do this well.

 

[Face2Face]

Glad to see AMD brought 7970 Ghz performance to the $300 price point. GTX 770 is a horrible buy in comparison, even comes pretty close to the GTX 780 in some of the games in Anands review.

On another note

Looks like MSI's card still has crappy vrm cooling. The higher ASIC cards will suffer in overclocking thank's to it :thumbsdown:

I appreciate what Gigabyte has done with their R9 280X - They added a separate heatsink with stand alone screws to help put more pressure on the vrms. This combined with their awesome cooler should really create some nice stable overclocking cards.