R9-370X launched

[LTC8K6]

Welcome back, Pitcairn.

http://www.techpowerup.com/215575/a...370x-sapphire-gives-it-vapor-x-treatment.html

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-radeon-r9-370x-launches.html

 

[poofyhairguy]

 

[Red Hawk]

Pitcairn was already part of the 300 series launch, with the 370 which was a harvested Pitcairn chip like the 7850 and 265. My question is just why did AMD hold back a fully enabled Pitcairn from the launch.

 

[SPBHM]

I don't even see the official specs mentioned and pricing, to compare it with the 270X and 7870...

but, AMD also didn't launch the full chip with the 360 and 380

 

[Red Hawk]

I don't even see the official specs mentioned and pricing, to compare it with the 270X and 7870...

but, AMD also didn't launch the full chip with the 360 and 380

Both articles say it's 1280 SPs, 80 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256 bit memory bus. That's a match for the 270X/7870.

 

[Rvenger]

Yawn...

What a dismal launch.

 

[Abwx]

Yawn...

What a dismal launch.

Quite the contrary, if the price is right...

It is supposed to perform like the 270X, so its target is clear..

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/941-22/recapitulatif-performances.html

 

[SPBHM]

Both articles say it's 1280 SPs, 80 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256 bit memory bus. That's a match for the 270X/7870.

I'm talking about the reference clock and prices, I only see a sapphire OC clocks mentioned

Quite the contrary, if the price is right...

It is supposed to perform like the 270X, so its target is clear..

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/941-22/recapitulatif-performances.html

I thought comparisons with the other company were not allowed here, but since you started it,
it will have to be a good bit cheaper than the gtx 950 ($159) to be a good option, since it's GCN 1.0 vs Maxwell 2 GM206 (HEVC video, HDMI 2.0)

from 20 games or so they place it on the exact same average speed as the 950, so if the 370X has a clock increase it could be marginally faster

but because it's and old rebranded product lacking some new stuff I think it has to be cheaper to be attractive.

it doesn't even support freesync, now that freesync is starting to look good with cheaper monitors supporting it from as low as 30Hz

 

[Abwx]

I thought comparisons with the other company were not allowed here, but since you started it,

I said that it s supposed to replace the 270X, now there s no graph at HFR with AMD cards only.

Obviously it can be set between the 270X and the 380 if its frequency is increased in respect of the 270X, that s the relevant comparison...

but because it's and old rebranded product lacking some new stuff I think it has to be cheaper to be attractive.

it doesn't even support freesync, now that freesync is starting to look good with cheaper monitors supporting it from as low as 30Hz

It will be a budget solution anyway, the chip has been amortized so they have some room for lower pricing, that said it is likely that the 270X will be a better deal...

 

[AtenRa]

Pitcairn was already part of the 300 series launch, with the 370 which was a harvested Pitcairn chip like the 7850 and 265. My question is just why did AMD hold back a fully enabled Pitcairn from the launch.

Because of the GTX950, it was obvious from the start.

 

[LTC8K6]

Why not use Tonga to have new GCN1.2 cards in this range?

2048 full Tonga R9-380X
1792 Tonga R9-380
???
1280 Tonga R9-370X
1024 Tonga R9-370

 

[Abwx]

Because of the GTX950, it was obvious from the start.

Or they waited for the 270X inventories to shrink significantly to not annoy the OEMs and retailers, i guess that the 270X is currently under price pressure even if it s supposed to be the same GPU, unless they increased frequencies , we ll know about this soon..

 

[Red Hawk]

I'm talking about the reference clock and prices, I only see a sapphire OC clocks mentioned

The chip is identical, so it will still be comparable to the 270X regardless of the clock speeds.

Because of the GTX950, it was obvious from the start.

You're saying AMD held off on setting a price for the 370X until Nvidia showed their hand with the 950's performance and price? That makes sense, actually.

 

[SPBHM]

I said that it s supposed to replace the 270X, now there s no graph at HFR with AMD cards only.

Obviously it can be set between the 270X and the 380 if its frequency is increased in respect of the 270X, that s the relevant comparison...



It will be a budget solution anyway, the chip has been amortized so they have some room for lower pricing, that said it is likely that the 270X will be a better deal...

"target is clear" I can only read as GTX 950, since it's the closest thing to it

hopefully they will price it accordingly, since it's over 3.5 years old...

Why not use Tonga to have new GCN1.2 cards in this range?

2048 full Tonga R9-380X
1792 Tonga R9-380
???
1280 Tonga R9-370X
1024 Tonga R9-370

1024 Tonga is half the chip disabled, seems very inefficient, realistically AMD could use new GPUs for this range, and even Tonga is showing its age relative to the stuff that the 950/960 supports;

still, I think the 7800s are decent performers, they just have to be cheaper than the newer stuff to make sense, since you are missing some newer features.

but it's better to have a 370X than nothing at this range, now it would be nice to launch full Tonga and the 260X rebrand.

 

[Abwx]

"target is clear" I can only read as GTX 950, since it's the closest thing to it

hopefully they will price it accordingly, since it's over 3.5 years old...

1024 Tonga is half the chip disabled, seems very inefficient, realistically AMD could use new GPUs for this range, and even Tonga is showing its age relative to the stuff that the 950/960 supports;

still, I think the 7800s are decent performers, they just have to be cheaper than the newer stuff to make sense, since you are missing some newer features.

but it's better to have a 370X than nothing at this range, now it would be nice to launch full Tonga and the 260X rebrand.

Yet AMD doesnt seem to target this card directly, prices suggest that it s actualy the 380 that will do this job as there s no reference GTX950, dont be misleaded by this graph as HFR didnt got such a card, they "simulated" it by downclocking the sample provided by Nvidia wich was heavily factory ocked...

As you point it a 260X refresh would be more usefull even if it s a slower card than a 270, that s a good card for rock bottom priced GPUs afficionados.

 

[LTC8K6]

"target is clear" I can only read as GTX 950, since it's the closest thing to it

hopefully they will price it accordingly, since it's over 3.5 years old...




1024 Tonga is half the chip disabled, seems very inefficient, realistically AMD could use new GPUs for this range, and even Tonga is showing its age relative to the stuff that the 950/960 supports;

still, I think the 7800s are decent performers, they just have to be cheaper than the newer stuff to make sense, since you are missing some newer features.

but it's better to have a 370X than nothing at this range, now it would be nice to launch full Tonga and the 260X rebrand.

Well, 1280 and 1024 Tonga could be new Tonga chips, made for the purpose, and probably with a different name. They have had a while to develop Tonga and GCN 1.2 to spread across a range of cards.

 

[RussianSensation]

(HEVC video, HDMI 2.0)

HEVC 4K decoding/encoding only matters for someone who has a 4K screen, right? Same for HDMI 2.0. People keep sighting these as some "advantages" when they are paper marketing specs that don't really matter for people buying GPUs in this price range.

Besides, at current prices R9 285 for $155 and R9 280X at $190, the R9 370X doesn't make sense as long as these cards are for sale.

Of course the smartest/most tech savvy consumers are skipping all the GTX950/960/960 4GB/R9 285/280 overpriced mid-range cards and hunting down $220 after-market R9 290 because the 4GB of VRAM and the gigantic performance increase is worth it.

$160 MSI Gaming 950 = 100%
$130 270X = 103%
$155 PowerColor R9 285 = 119% (this card makes sure R9 370X is irrelevant)
$170 After-market GTX960 = 126% (this card makes sure the 950 is a waste of $)
$190 Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290X = 134% (this card makes sure the 950 is a waste of $)
$220 Sapphire Tri-X R9 290 = 180% (For anyone who doesn't have a $10 OEM 300W PSU, this card is the best buy under $240 hands down, before going for a $255 B-stock GTX970)
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/nvidia-geforce-gtx-950-test/3/#abschnitt_tests_in_1920__1080

Trying to argue what's better R9 370X or 950/960 but ignoring the obvious superior gaming cards is just going to mislead new / less experienced PC gamers trying to assemble a new rig and actually want a good graphics card without getting ripped off. :thumbsup:

In brand agnostic titles that haven't been slapped with a GW's moniker, GTX750Ti/GTX950/960 get wrecked by their respective price competitors, while the slightly more expensive R9 290 crushes all of these NV cards and AMD's R9 285/280/280X for barely more $ and comes with 4GB of VRAM as a bonus:
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/trine-3-benchmark-grafikkarte/

And that's another major point that people overlook when sighting marketing gimmicky features like HDMI 2.0 but ignoring the red flag 2GB of VRAM on 160-200 cards. 2GB cards are guaranteed to suffer in 1080P gaming, while who uses a GTX950/960/R9 270X/370X card for 4K gaming exactly?

I wouldn't touch a 2GB AMD/NV card for gaming that costs $150+ with a 30-foot pole as it's DOA on arrival.

Also, when we look at some games at 4K to simulate high GPU demand, the low end GTX950/R9 270X/960/285 cards fall apart against even R9 280X/$180 GTX770. That means these cards have 0 ability to withstand the onslaught of next generation demanding games.

When the price of GTX950/960/R9 370X/370/380/285 is so close to 280X/290, it's simply bad advice to recommend these neutered NV/AMD budget cards for gaming when the next level UP is 50-80% faster for a very small price premium considering gamers keep their GPU for 2-3 years nowadays.

 

[shady28]

HEVC 4K decoding/encoding only matters for someone who has a 4K screen, right?

Actually, no.

HEVC's main advantage is lower bit rate for a given resolution.

It's mostly associated with 4K because even higher-end network connections overload with 4K streaming.

The first Snapdragon SoC to support HEVC, the 801, only did so at 1080p.

Of course another major factor with HEVC is not on the consumer end, but on the provider. Knocking out 25-35% of your bandwidth requirement on existing media is a really, really big deal. Hence providers are moving fairly quickly to support HEVC.

 

[SPBHM]

HEVC video decode does not require a 4K screen, it is an advantage.

HDMI 2.0 is important for future proof for general usage, or for HTPC usage right now.

launch/official prices are very important, the deals you can get vary to much to mention as a definitive answer to another card, 290s are going away, 950 is going to stay for a long time, and these cards are very different in terms of power requirements, a 950 level of card will work as a solution in cases a 290 is not a good solution.

4K gaming is not very important for +- $150 cards at the moment.

2GB doesn't seem to be a huge deal for the 380 once your test is not isolated to obvious worst cases,
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-radeon-r9-380-2gb-4gb-review
and the 380 is priced higher than the cards being mentioned here, I think it's OK for 270x-GTX 950 level, less OK for a 960/380+ since the price starts to go towards $200

 

[LTC8K6]

"DX12" "4K" "HDMI2" "HEVC" etc., are all terms that get a lot of people to upgrade and buy video cards.

The fact that they won't use the feature,or don't even know what it is, doesn't really matter.

If card A has all the new buzzword features listed on the box, and card B next to it on the shelf doesn't, they are going to buy card A.

 

[Madpacket]

Value is subjective depending on the intent of the cards use of the gamer. While the 290 offers the best price to performance ratio it suffers horribly compared to say a Geforce 960 in the size, power consumption and heat disappation properties.

It also restricts your ability to purchase lower cost and wattage power supplies and additional cooling required to to dissappate additional heat.

I also think you're overstating the need for 1080P - 4GB of RAM requirements for cards with medium sized fillrates like the 950 or 960. They run out of breath pretty fast where the benefits of the extra memory mostly go unused. Or if used, it's for superfluous reasons that render the card almost unayable which can be mitigated by a few changes to the anti aliasing or dialing back aniso from 16 to 8. Sure a few bad console ports exist that benefit from extra memory but this isn't the norm or even a trend at this point.

I look at it this way. Purpose built computers demand different types of hardware. Why on earth would I want to stuff a 290 into a HTPC / Steam Box for a large 1080P 60Hz television. This would look rediculous given the case size and power requirements to house such a beastly setup.

Sure for a pure gaming box with a high Hz 1440P monitor you sit a few feet from pick the 290 but for Steam boxes where you're sitting 10 feet back on a 65" TV they make for a poor choice.

Just something to consider.

 

[Azix]

I thought comparisons with the other company were not allowed here

if this is the case for this thread then it does not belong here. I'd guess if it were about 370x for those who had it, then that would apply. If its just a thread about the card then its bound to be compared to the competition.

Its hard to imagine people are buying these kinds of GPUs for HDMI 2.0 at least. The TVs properly supporting that seem to be in the thousands and I dont even know where you get video to play at 60fps 4k. For gaming its non-sense to care about for this range

 

[SimianR]

I'm really disappointed that AMD did not have a $ 150-250 GCN 1.2, HBM based card. I think the R9 390/390X are fine (especially since they were overlooked because of the poor reference coolers the first time around), but a lot of the other cards feel pretty tired and AMD's next gen cards really can't come soon enough.

 

[tential]

does anyone have a review of the R9 290 with a power limit on it? I want to see how power consumption, noise, heat, gaming performance with powerlimits. Just curious to see what the card is capable of.

 

[SPBHM]

if this is the case for this thread then it does not belong here. I'd guess if it were about 370x for those who had it, then that would apply. If its just a thread about the card then its bound to be compared to the competition.

Its hard to imagine people are buying these kinds of GPUs for HDMI 2.0 at least. The TVs properly supporting that seem to be in the thousands and I dont even know where you get video to play at 60fps 4k. For gaming its non-sense to care about for this range

yes, I think this thread is relevant for the video cards and graphics sub forum, not just the AMD one,

as for HDMI 2.0 you are right, it's rare right now, but the people who are already using it will have these cards as a choice and not the AMD ones, and it's good for future proofing

60Hz is a big thing also for basic desktop usage, using windows at 30Hz is pretty bad, and I think 4K HDMI 2.0 TVs will be more popular than DisplayPort TVs?!