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

[rainy]

I'm confused (nVidia user here ) - but I see standard 7970 in that range but all the 7970GE are $350 or above.

Here is HD 7970 for 279.99 (20 dollars rebate) - it have the same clock as 7970 GE except memory (5500 MHz instead of 6000).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127732

 

[OCGuy]

Here is HD 7970 for 279.99 (20 dollars rebate) - it have the same clock as 7970 GE except memory (5500 MHz instead of 6000).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127732

Not sure why anyone would pay for the 280 over the 2 year old 7970...

 

[Aikouka]

Here is HD 7970 for 279.99 (20 dollars rebate) - it have the same clock as 7970 GE except memory (5500 MHz instead of 6000).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127732

That's a "standard 7970" like Chumster was talking about. It's technically just been overclocked, because that's what a 7970 Ghz Edition is -- a binned, overclocked 7970. It's kind of like those way overpriced FX processors that AMD released a few months back. You could have bought that other one (the 8350?) and possibly OC'd it to the same level for considerably less.

 

[FalseChristian]

We don't need 2x performance boost every 18 months anymore. Heck, my 2 GTX 460 1GB SLI Overclocked to 875/1750/4200 play Battlefield 4 at 1680x1050 on High at over 40 fps! And they're over 3 1/4 years old!

 

[wand3r3r]

We don't need 2x performance boost every 18 months anymore. Heck, my 2 GTX 460 1GB SLI Overclocked to 875/1750/4200 play Battlefield 4 at 1680x1050 on High at over 40 fps! And they're over 3 1/4 years old!

Yeah since "we" (everyone) all game at 1680x1050 so nobody needs more power...

Shame on AMD/NV for increasing performance.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I for one am thankful to AMD and Nvidia, had they delivered GK110/R290X performance at $500 my wallet might have, wait I don't have a wallet, my overlords paypal may have seen extra charges!

I didn't go for the GTX 780 for $650, I won't be swayed by a R290X with similar performance at a similar price.

I dunno why AMD would try to slip into a segment that has to be bleed pretty dry by this point. The number of people willing to pay $600+ for a video card has to be quite small, AMD or Nvidia.

 

[SlickR12345]

I just know the GTX 460 1GB launched at $200, soon fell to 170 and within a year to $150.

The GTX 560 TI started at $250, dropped to $200, these days the same type of performance that a mid range would deliver over the previous series top end back in the day is around the $300 mark.

So I'm not satisfied at all and I think AMD is going to lose some market-share the following year.

 

[MeldarthX]

AMD's gained market share this quarter; they are up to 38%; and I can easily see them gaining more market share; specially if R9 290X mostly beats Titan; which beats 780......and if they priced it 599 or less......they will move cards.....

now if they put it 550....you will have a lot of people jump on them.

I'm personally wanting to know the price on the 290......if that comes in around 399 or less......means it should be about £300 to £330 price.....hell yea I'll be all over that.

 

[rainy]

over the 2 year old 7970...

Looks like for some people time is running differently: HD 7970 was officialy released (aka paper-launch) on 22 December 2011 and it is in sale since 9 January 2012.

That's a "standard 7970" like Chumster was talking about.

Not exactly, it have Boost Clock (1050 MHz) too.
After overclocking RAM to 6 GHz you have simply HD 7970 GE.

 

[Rvenger]

R9-290X could be $550.

 

[Face2Face]

R9-290X could be $550.

The R9 290 could be $449 or $475

 

[GaiaHunter]

The R9 290 could be $449 or $475

On today review of the Toxic R9 280X, Ryan said:

On a final note, since we’re looking at AMD’s second-tier cards – 290X is still due to arrive – given Sapphire’s $349 MSRP any purchasers may want to hold off for a bit until we have pricing and performance information for AMD’s new top-tier lineup. If they were to deliver a strong $400 card then the 280X Toxic likely wouldn’t as much sense. But that’s something we won’t know for sure until the 290X is launched. It is however something to at least consider given the significant mark-up on the 280X Toxic over a standard 280X.

Emphasis is mine.

 

[Rvenger]

On today review of the Toxic R9 280X, Ryan said:



Emphasis is mine.

r9-290 should be $150 more than the Reference 280x. AMD should be pricing identical to the launch of Tahiti.

 

[raghu78]

r9-290 should be $150 more than the Reference 280x. AMD should be pricing identical to the launch of Tahiti.

yeah R9 290 at USD 450 and R9 290X at USD 550 will be perfect. AMD can then be lauded for not increasing the price points as Nvidia did with Titan and 780. But somehow I feel AMD might want to join in on the fun and enjoy the extra margins that Nvidia has been enjoying on GK110 based Geforce SKUs for the past 6 - 7 months. can't blame them as a business as they need the money more (huge 2bn debt to repay) than Nvidia do which is a cash rich company(3bn in cash).

 

[Face2Face]

r9-290 should be $150 more than the Reference 280x. AMD should be pricing identical to the launch of Tahiti.

I would hope so, but I think the Channel pricing is acting as a place holder.. they vary so much from model to model.. it's hard to decipher.

 

[UaVaj]

R9-290X could be $550.

if the rumor are true and performance is between 780 and titan.

it will be $750. ($650 "if" amd wants to dry up 780 sales)

why would it be any less?

 

[3DVagabond]

290/290X = $399/$499 That would shake the money from a lot of people's pockets.

 

[Rvenger]

I am holding firm on $450 and $550.


$499 - 599 at the very most.


I am starting to see consistancies on my end now.

 

[Madmick]

I have a question about the R9 270X. It appears to me to be over-performing in the benchmarks: specifically on TechPowerUp. The expectation based on rumors of specs was that it would be between the 7870 and 7950, and probably closer to the 7870 end. But check this:
TPU > R9 270X Performance Summary
At 1080p they've got it performing 1% below the 7950 across the spectrum. That seems inexplicably close. It's 9% faster than the 7870. Furthermore, check these:
TPU > VTX3D 7870 XT Performance Summary
TPU > Club 3D 7870 XT Performance Summary
Both of those have the 7870 XT coming in at 3% behind the 7950 on 1080p. Given, there were a few different games in the roundup, but beyond that, the test setups are virtually identical (trading the 3770K for the 4770K in the 270X review). Ergo, the 270X appears to be out-muscling the 7870 XT. Yet compare the architecture:

7870 XT vs. 270X
4313 > 2800 Transistors
352 > 212 die size
2GB = 2GB VRAM
925 MHz < 1000 MHz Core Clock
1500 MHz > 1400 MHz Memory Clock
1536 > 1280 Shaders
96 > 80 TMUs
32 = 32 ROPs
256 = 256 Bus Width

Furthermore, in those TPU benchmarks, both of the 7870 XT cards had been pre-boosted by the manufacturers to 975 MHz. How [redacted] does any of this make sense?

Tom's Hardware and Techspot didn't seem as impressed with the 270X. Tom's Hardware concluded it was "slightly faster" than the 7870; uh, they don't appear to have reviewed their own review. On the gaming benchmarks, not the synthetics, the 270X beat the 7870 in FPS every single time, and it even equaled or beat the GTX 760 on three of the seven games they tested: Arma III, Skyrim, and Tomb Raider.

Meanwhile, Techspot wrote, "In all seriousness though, this release from AMD is disappointing to put it mildly. Essentially anyone who has purchased the Radeon HD 7870...graphics cards basically already has the Radeon R9 270X. For over a year it's been possible to purchase a factory overclocked 1.1GHz Radeon HD 7870..." which hammers a pet peeve of mine: equivocating a lesser card, overclocked, to a better card, at stock. Hell, in the next paragraph he acknowledges it was ~6% faster across the board after he tried to make this seem like it was purely insignificant. Again, the 270X outperformed- this time the 7950- on several of their gaming benchmarks.

Can someone explain? I don't see how this could be a cook. It's this purely better DX11 optimization? All these benchmarks were on 11.1 drivers.

Warning issued for profanity.
-- stahlhart

 

[Madmick]

290/290X = $399/$499 That would shake the money from a lot of people's pockets.

I am holding firm on $450 and $550.

$499 - 599 at the very most.

I am starting to see consistancies on my end now.

$500-$550 for the R9 290X? That's what you think is appropriate? You guys say hello to Tinkerbell for me.

 

[omeds]

Ergo

 

[Rvenger]

$500-$550 for the R9 290X? That's what you think is appropriate? You guys say hello to Tinkerbell for me.

That's what I see as it being the actual price. It's my yearly forecast.

 

[blackened23]

That's what I see as it being the actual price. It's my yearly forecast.

If this is correct and it trades blows with the Titan, then AMD got the pricing right. They're basically replicating the 5870 launch which was released at 399$ and sold a TON of cards as a result.

I do hope that you're correct.

 

[Grooveriding]

It will be a feeding frenzy at that price like we saw with 5870. If you didn't get a 5870 right at launch you waited as long as a month for more stock to show up. They priced that card too low imo.

$550 for 290X with Titan performance and $450 for 290 with 780 performance along with having Battlefield 4 locked down would shake up the whole overpriced 28nm situation in the high end.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I have a question about the R9 270X. It appears to me to be over-performing in the benchmarks: specifically on TechPowerUp. The expectation based on rumors of specs was that it would be between the 7870 and 7950, and probably closer to the 7870 end. But check this:
TPU > R9 270X Performance Summary
At 1080p they've got it performing 1% below the 7950 across the spectrum. That seems inexplicably close. It's 9% faster than the 7870. Furthermore, check these:
TPU > VTX3D 7870 XT Performance Summary
TPU > Club 3D 7870 XT Performance Summary
Both of those have the 7870 XT coming in at 3% behind the 7950 on 1080p. Given, there were a few different games in the roundup, but beyond that, the test setups are virtually identical (trading the 3770K for the 4770K in the 270X review). Ergo, the 270X appears to be out-muscling the 7870 XT. Yet compare the architecture:

7870 XT vs. 270X
4313 > 2800 Transistors
352 > 212 die size
2GB = 2GB VRAM
925 MHz < 1000 MHz Core Clock
1500 MHz > 1400 MHz Memory Clock
1536 > 1280 Shaders
96 > 80 TMUs
32 = 32 ROPs
256 = 256 Bus Width

Furthermore, in those TPU benchmarks, both of the 7870 XT cards had been pre-boosted by the manufacturers to 975 MHz. How [redacted] does any of this make sense?

Tom's Hardware and Techspot didn't seem as impressed with the 270X. Tom's Hardware concluded it was "slightly faster" than the 7870; uh, they don't appear to have reviewed their own review. On the gaming benchmarks, not the synthetics, the 270X beat the 7870 in FPS every single time, and it even equaled or beat the GTX 760 on three of the seven games they tested: Arma III, Skyrim, and Tomb Raider.

Meanwhile, Techspot wrote, "In all seriousness though, this release from AMD is disappointing to put it mildly. Essentially anyone who has purchased the Radeon HD 7870...graphics cards basically already has the Radeon R9 270X. For over a year it's been possible to purchase a factory overclocked 1.1GHz Radeon HD 7870..." which hammers a pet peeve of mine: equivocating a lesser card, overclocked, to a better card, at stock. Hell, in the next paragraph he acknowledges it was ~6% faster across the board after he tried to make this seem like it was purely insignificant. Again, the 270X outperformed- this time the 7950- on several of their gaming benchmarks.

Can someone explain? I don't see how this could be a cook. It's this purely better DX11 optimization? All these benchmarks were on 11.1 drivers.

Warning issued for profanity.
-- stahlhart

The 7950 was 10% faster than the 7870 during the 7870 XT reviews. In the R9 270X review the difference is 9%.

The R9 270X is OC 5% on the core and 16% on the memory.

At stock clocks the 7870 XT isn't much faster than the 7870 - since the 7870 is clocked higher it has a higher pixel rate (32 vs 29.6) and the Tahiti Achilles heel seems to be in that department (even the 7970 has problems to create a gap to the 7950 at high clocks), but once you overclock the differences between the 7870 XT and the 7870/R9 270X are bigger.