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AMD Continues To Pressure NVIDIA With Lower Cost Radeon R9 270 and BF4 Bundle
MojoKid writes "The seemingly never-ending onslaught of new graphics cards as of late continues today with the official release of the AMD Radeon R9 270. This mainstream graphics card actually leverages the same GPU that powered last-year's Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition. AMD, however, has tweaked the clocks and through software and board level revisions updated the card to allow for more flexible use of its display outputs (using Eyefinity no longer requires the use of a DisplayPort). Versus the 1GHz (GPU) and 4.8Gbps (memory) of the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition, the Radeon R9 270 offers slightly lower compute performance (2.37 TFLOPS vs. 2.56 TFLOPS), but much more memory bandwidth--179.2GB/s vs. 153.6GB/s to be exact. AMD and its add in board partners are launching the Radeon R9 270 today, with prices starting at $179. The Radeon R9 270's starting price is somewhat aggressive and once again puts pressure on NVIDIA. GeForce GTX 660 cards, which typically performed lower than the Radeon R9 270 are priced right around the $190 mark. Along with this card, AMD is also announcing an update to its game bundle, and beginning November 13 Radeon R9 270 – R9 290X cards will include a free copy of Battlefield 4. NVIDIA, on the other hand, is offering Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Assassins Creed – Black Flag, plus $50 off a SHIELD portable gaming device with GTX 660 and 760 cards."
Chart for the lazy.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
AMD's scheme right now is actually pretty easy.
The first number is the generation. We're on "2", even though they just started this new numbering scheme this year, but that's fine.
The next number is the "category". Best way to think of it is monitor resolution: _70 is for 1080p - you'll get 60FPS+ on most games at max settings, real killers may need a settings drop but you'll generally be fine. _80 is for 120Hz or 1440p monitors, and the _90 is for tri-monitor 1080p, 4K, or obscene multi-GPU rigs. And an _60 part is a lower-quality 1080p - think "high" or "medium", not "max".
An X suffix means it's the "full" part, the lack of an X means it's been binned in some way (reduced clockspeeds and/or some cores disabled). For example, the 290X has 44 "compute units", while the 290 has 40 at a slightly lower clockspeed. On the 270s, they're both 20 compute units, but the 270X is clocked about 10% higher.
Since both new consoles use AMD chips, it's worthwhile to compare to them. The PS4 is a bit weaker version of the 270, and the Xbox One is a slightly underclocked 260.
Nvidia's scheme is similar (add another 0 on the end for no reason, swap "Ti" for "X", and be generation 7 instead of 2), but they've complicated it right now by not rebadging old chips as new names. AMD's recent launches were basically "launch a new 9-tier chip, take all the old ones, up the clockspeeds, bump them down a tier and cut their prices accordingly". The 270s that just launched are essentially overclocked 7870s (think "180X").
Right now, Nvidia's lineup starts at the 650 and 650 Ti Boost (medium-end 1080p), 660 and 760 (high-end 1080p), 770 and 780 (1440p), and the 780 Ti (4K). Nobody's really sure whether they're going to launch more low-end 700-series parts. They're also looser with which ones are low bins of what - the 780 is a binned 780 Ti, but the 760 is a binned 770.
PS: Ignore the Titan. It's no longer a gaming card - the 780 Ti outperforms it (the Titan is a binned 780 Ti), at $300 less.
Nothing. They are completely random marketing labels, and often designed to be misleading. So the commenter above has no clue. This is not T-34 to T-54 "new tank is better than old tank" series here.
If graphics chip marketing guys would have had their say made soviet tanks then T-34 would have been something like CrossFire DUAL 54200 Extreme Edition and T-54 something like 6700 HDD RXX 2GB Edition.
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For what I have experienced, that perception is a bit outdated. AMD's drivers have been as good as NVIDIA's for about one or two years. On Windows. On Linux, NVIDIA is still way, way better. For newer cards. If you can use the proprietary driver at all.
Despite the massive amount of bashing going back and forth here, I feel compelled to point out that I've swapped back and forth between both AMD/ATI and NVidia over the years and I've run into problems with brand new games having glitches with one or the other on both sides. Even having said that, I'm talking two or three times in over a decade. Aside from that I've had fans go out on one card, and it still lasted long enough after that that I didn't feel bad when it came time to buy a new one.
For most people it really doesn't matter what card you get as long as it isn't ancient. For enthusiasts, compare specs and get what you need. If the specs look like they're in Klingon to you, take the time to learn what's what. If you can't be arsed to do that, then you aren't an enthusiast in the first place.
This isn't like rooting for your home sports team. There is no justifiable reason to give complete loyalty to any company when weighing your purchases.