This is one of the worst launches from AMD in years. The naming is all wrong and so is the pricing. I mean 7950 had been $250 for so long, it's insane. Heck, even 1 year ago I remember recommending $300 1-1.05Ghz 7970s from Gigabyte and MSI. You can look at it as 7950/7970 have been some of the best buys in that nothing from AMD has eclipsed those cards in almost 2 years on price/performance. But the sad part is for those gamers who have not upgraded to 7950/760/7970 in the last 1.5 years, they are gaining very little given the time which has passed. If anything this card is gimped by 2GB of VRAM.
I can't even believe anyone thought Tonga would be a Maxwell competitor. Obviously not as it's only GCN 1.1, squarely aimed at 760 and nothing more. I have seen R9 280 for $180-200 many many times and R9 280X for $240-270 is not a rarity. I would pick those up before inventory is depleted. AMD needed to bring 280/280X performance to $200/250 by now, but instead they are still stuck selling us nearly 3 year old 7950/7970 performance for $250-280. Yawn. Let's hope NV's 860/860Ti does something to shake up the otherwise completely stagnant $200-325 landscape of GPUs.
I am pretty shocked at the stagnation in the GPU market right now. I clearly remember recommending after-market 7950 for $280 when 680 used to cost $450. That's 2 years ago!!! In that time there is still no card at $250 that's better than an overclocked 7950, other than the occasional 280X with a rebate.
It's obvious that R9 200 series is from the current generation. It doesn't matter if it's 280/285/295X/280X, etc. Maxwell is a next generation product. The competitor to Maxwell is not going to be 285/285X but 300 series. The reason AMD launched these is because it's way cheaper to sell a 256-bit 2GB gimped card then a full fledged 7950/7970/280/280X. It's just going to mean if Nv launches 860/860Ti soon, AMD will be behind by 6-8 months. I mean NV was behind 5-9 months against 7770/7850/7870/7950 with their 650Ti/660/660Ti. The difference is gamers who purchase AMD cards won't be wasting 6-9 months of their life to wait specifically for AMD's response - they will just buy the 860/860Ti. Therefore, it is a lot more critical for AMD to launch on time. They can't really afford for NV's midrange Maxwell lineup to beat them by 6 months or it will be a market share slaughter.
Yeah and today people with a $450 GTX680 can buy a G-Sync monitor and enjoy the biggest innovation in gaming since years.
AMD's GCN 1.0 products are outdated.
I would never recommend them anymore because of the missing features like variable refresh for gaming (if Freesync does exist...)-
My freaking gtx770 feels freaking ancient,the tech is over 2 years old.Never sat on such a piece of hardware for so long with the lack of excitement for a respectable upgrade.God i hope Maxwell pans out or it might be another year or two.
I'm curious to see the die size, transistor count, and final performance numbers for a fully functional Tonga chip. It should be around 5-10% faster than GTX770, but I have no idea on die size or transistor count. Even though this new chip does nothing particularly interesting vs. what is already on the market, hopefully it will at least provide eventual pricing pressure to Nvidia's upcoming Maxwell onslaught.
Obviously not as it's only GCN 1.1, squarely aimed at 760 and nothing more.
Question - did the TDP drop so much because of a better process, or was some compute functions 'trimmed' to show a better TDP? Just a question...
This leads me to want to see what idle and load (when gaming) are. I guess we will have to wait for reviews.
Question - did the TDP drop so much because of a better process, or was some compute functions 'trimmed' to show a better TDP? Just a question...
This leads me to want to see what idle and load (when gaming) are. I guess we will have to wait for reviews.
1GB GDDR5 less, 128bit bus less, lower core clocks.
10W is much?
This is totally underwhelming, but I bet they'll sell boatloads anyway just because of the SC bundle.
280x is 250w and 280 is 200w...
Still not sure if this replacing both or just 280...
Worst and most useless launch (card) I have seen in years.
Hype it up, hype it up.
What do we release?
A freaking R9 280 called R9 285, based on the same almost 3 year old architecture.
In the meantime, Nvidia have the Maxwell GM107 out for over 6 months and is soon ready to launch two new cards based on GM204. Both for desktop and mobile.
AMDs only way to combat Maxwell? Release rebrands and cheaper cards.
AMD is seriously falling behind. Sad to see because a ton of people expected Tonga to be AMDs red little Maxwell.
But no.
Worst and most useless launch (card) I have seen in years.
Hype it up, hype it up.
What do we release?
A freaking R9 280 called R9 285, based on the same almost 3 year old architecture.
In the meantime, Nvidia have the Maxwell GM107 out for over 6 months and is soon ready to launch two new cards based on GM204.
AMDs only way to combat Maxwell? Release rebrands and cheaper cards.
AMD is seriously falling behind. Sad to see because a ton of people expected Tonga to be AMDs red little Maxwell.
But no.
It's because 770 level of performance is 'ancient' by tech terms. 680 OC delivered that level of performance in March 2012, or 2.5 years ago.
whose expectations? also tahiti was gcn 1.0 and this is a newer revision...not to mention xdma crossfire and trueaudio.
Not to mention higher price, 1GB less, 2/3rds the memory bandwidth, lower clocks. Amazing progress, right?
Not to mention higher price, 1GB less, 2/3rds the memory bandwidth, lower clocks. Amazing progress, right?
R9 280 MRSP is $279, R9 285 MRSP is 249
Its actually 249. But thats some months ago.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8019/amd-cuts-radeon-r9-280-to-249
yeap correct it was lowered to $249, yet again Tonga is not more expensive like you said.