FRONTPAGE AMD R7 260X Graphics Card Review

ima amd fanboy but seems to me 650ti is a better deal, specially if you find one used i paid 108 for mine(used evga lifetime warranty), and its the 2gb ssc midget version.

would be nice if it wasnt a double slot card either. for itx applications most of the smaller cases only have one pci cutout since its itx spec. mine is like that but since i dont have the stacked dvi ports they are side by side it still fit fine and with the cooler setup just like that one it doesnt have to exhaust out the back.

Any ideas on the true audio titles? Bf4? I was hoping we would find out a bit more on this.

i can seem to find anything on the internet about any games yet.

Hi Guys,
The only information I have right now lists three upcoming game titles.
Murdered -Soul Suspect
Theif
Lichdom

That doesn't mean that's all of them, but for now it's all I have on the list.
Thanks!

Looks like its competing with a 650 TI or 650 TI boost with very comparable specs. Nothing special at all and i would say, its a bit newer and improved but ultimately its not able to exceed the Nvidia offers, its simply a good match. Its probably a bit stronger than a 650 TI but slightly weaker than a 650 TI boost. But totaly depends on situation of course, guess to some extend it can match the 650 TI boost, but its not truly helping at gaming because ultimately no matter if we use 650 TI, 650 TI boost or 260X, they all need to be "cranked" down to medium settings, in term they want to be used for gaming (with good FPS).

Surely a great HTPC GPU for those who want a truly powerful and beasty "master of all classes" HTPC GPU. But at 1080P gaming it wont go past "medium settings" else the card will struggle to maintain good FPS in many cases.

In the same price range a even better gamer GPU could be gotten, for example a old 6950 or 7850, they both may perform better and are priced the same or even lower (6950 could be gotten for less than 100 $ and 7850 may drop to below 130 $ very soon). So for me the 260X is simply a great, quiet and very effective HTPC GPU for those who arnt happy with any of the weaker solutions. Especially at high AA settings, the higher bus bandwidth of the 6950 and 7850 may be able to improve overall stability of FPS (max FPS is never a matter, min FPS is the critical stuff).

Is this a gcn processor that will benefit from mantle when introduced?

The entire 7000 series and all the R series are basically GNC based architectures* (the 2 new "true next gen consoles" too) and in theory they all should be benefiting from Mantle (because they basically use the same drivers). But im not sure about the whole Mantle thing, so its gonna be a interesting research. After all, AMD did release very few infos about that new API so far but i think it can be useful for a alternate OS such as Linux. The main problem Linux got is the API support, most games are only supporting Direct X and i truly wonder if Mantle is able to make some changes.

*There is just very small differences, resulting into GCN 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 "specs" but it doesnt mean to much. The GCN 1.0 is the "old" 7000 series, the 1.1 is simply with a new audio chip as far as i know, and the only "truly improved GCN" is the GCN 2.0, but its main performance is coming from a increased ressource count and just very few from a minor GCN improvement.

I heard, Mantle can even be used on Nvidia or Intel Hardware, so its not bound to AMD. Mantle is able to provide full features, no matter the OS (so users of Win 7 dont get disdavantage vs. Win 8), so its pretty interesting. BF4 will be supporting Mantle, but not much more known so far.

Still curious why Overclockers isnt able to review "the real beast" but the baby puppys instead. Its pretty unusual and a hint that AMD isnt truly trying to compete hard enough, just trying to match Nvidia in some way... its some sort of flower war i feel. Prehaps there is a hidden agreement between those companys not to use the blade of a Katana but its sheath instead, so both are able to decrease cost and it may be helping in order to fight the real monster... Intel.

Lol ivy the nda isnt up on them yet thats why they have posted the reviews. Its always been that way the flagship gpus are always released later they still have two more that are faster than the 7980

Not true, the 7970, the old flagship was the first 7000 series they released and it took them way to much time in order to release the "lower series". Same for Nvidia, the first Kepler they was releasing is the GTX 680... Funnily enough, the time AMD was releasing the 7970 was just a "boasting press release" and not a official one. They wasnt ready for a quick delivery of the customers. With the R series, they apparently are gonna handle it a bit different and arnt trying to make "press releases but without a real release": So i expect to have a good bunch of cards available soon, right after "press release".

But with the R series, AMD decided to make a flower war, and isnt trying to "impress" to hard. Will be interesting how Nvidia will be handling it when Maxwell is released. Prehaps they gonna throw in the flagship in order to "impress".

Btw: 7980 sounds like a myth, and it wouldnt even be easy to cool that chip down (without watercooling) when there is even more SPs. In term there is no improvements on the architecture i wouldnt want that "jet engine". The main problem nowadays is the cooling, not any other factors such as PSU, even the smallest PSUs (smaller than a card) could handle a Titan nowadays. People should stop looking at power supply elements (inside card or outside), it says nothing at all... the cooling is the only factor able to enable or disable performance (apart from chip quality, cooling is the culprit to OCing too).

The 290X +290 got some architecture improvements (not a new architecture but they did improve the GCN a little). I expect them to run at least 10% more effective (GFLOP/W) compared to the "old GCN" but it could be even more (of course thats affecting TDP too). Else the massive amount of ressources used is difficult to implement without the card running hot (it would result into a jet engine, comparable to a 7990). Cooling is the main issue when building stuff inside SFF (small form factor PCs) too and any hardware able to perform well at such a environment got a increased value. Compact sized cooling elements (such as micro WC) will be the most advanced and most important stuff soon, in a hardware market with increased demand for smaller systems because the amount of people seeking for compact solutions is increasing. The most valuable PC is the one with few size but good cooling, not unable to exist but hardest tech able to create (thats the challenge a expert should try to execute).

lol how can you type so much with saying literally nothing. you could have said all that with two sentences. and 7980 was obviously a typo.

and either way they never have released an entire series at one time. never. they always stagger them weather it is the flagship gpu's first or the mid - low end ones first they have done it both ways. and i can bet were gonna have the 290 r the 290x for reviews the "big boy cards" that we "never get" because this must be such a bad forum?.


p.s. the entire last two paragraphs you posted were completely and utterly pointless. there's an entire thread dedicated to rumors for gpu's, actually the entire speculation about neither company trying hard is covered in there too.

Look, this time the lower R series is nothing more than "old chips" and those was already available for very long. They was probably only changing the model number and putting in a new sound chip, thats it. So its no wonder the lower series was that easy to release.

The situation would be different when the architecture is completly new (comparable to the old 7000 series). In that term they are gonna create a fully winged chip, and the lower series will usualy be released after because they are usualy fully winged chips with "broken legs", so they have to be run at lower ressources. Some of the even lower series will have a own much smaller die in order to save up cost but its contraprductive to release the weak chips first because they arnt having the required amount in order to supply the huge mainstream at release. Its easyer to produce a few "fully winged" chips at release at a high price, so the supply is easyer to maintain. There is a good reason for the staggering, just have to understand the matter.

The lower end R series has been released faster than the flagship because there is already tons of chips available... its not a new chip at all.

Still, AMD could have delayed the release (of the lower series) in order boast around using theyr flagships first, but it doesnt truly change anything because either they gonna sell the old chips in the shape of a 7000 or the new R series... its both almost the same. The true reason why i call it a flower war is because AMD could have released (press release) the flagships way sooner and not delay the reviews so hard... because the card is basically fully alive for several weeks already but AMD isnt trying to make a "premature press only release" anymore. At least many game devs already got the stuff running for weeks, and are certainly happy with, at the same time we are getting releases of rebadged hardware for the public... (whoot). At least they could put the new sound chip on any of them but im not sure thats the case.

which we all already know they are old chips with the "updates" thats why they can crossifire a 280x and a 7970. duh. its not like AMD and NVIDIA havent been doing the same crap since the 8800/1900 series, both sides have been rebadging cards almost every single series. i dont see why you are making such a big deal over it this time. 770 is just a rebadged 680... 9800gtx rebadged 8800gtx. ect ect.

Besides, the 260X got the new audio chip is that correct? So i truly would say its a great HTPC card, but as a (max setting) gamer card it will lack muscles (especially for future games). So its actually the GCN 1.1 spec, when i got that right.

Of course, the entire matter about AMD deciding not to implement the sound chip inside any mid range card is leaving a very bitter smell on my tongue, that cant be serious yet they still are serious. So AMD is kinda offending the whole mid range market doing so and only giving them cheap rebrands, but at least at a good price.

The rebadging was rarely used on non OEM cards and usualy just a few cards but not entire series with the exception of flagship(s). It wasnt common for the dedicated high end market, but i believe that the customers simply want to see "something new" to waste bucks on, so rebrands/rebadge are welcome in order to make them feel to get something new.

I think the lack of the sound thing added into the mid range/carry over stuff is likely a hint at what will be refreshed first on 20nm = soon.

the audio thing will not effect movie stuff so it wont belp htpc's or anything, its more of a sound physics processor per se. like different sounds for environments and sounds made by physical interaction distances, surroundings all things like that will effect the sound in real time so its not just playing a general mp3 file that is the same no matter what comes in contact with something.

Well, in term the new chip is only affecting sound physics (that means real time processing using a game engine, prehaps even non game engines), and they are implementing it at a weak gamer card (performance is about 650 TI boost level), its rather hilarious. The aged 650 TI AMP (OCd) is about the same level of performance with same card size and about same GFLOP/W, almost 1 year older than this new flashy release. OC potential of the 260 X is low too (same as AMP) because its already clocked very high.

Technically the 260X is a 7790 rebrand but with a new "sound physics chip", yet those sound physics calculations could be done on the CPU (prehaps even GPU) itself but its using valuable processing ressources. There is another weakness on "CPU" bound calculations: The CPU simply isnt fast enough in order to make calculations without delay, but its bit difficult to understand. A CPU, such as any part of the PCs hardware, is running at a certain frequency and is exchanging informations with many other parts. Thats a complicated architecture constantly busy with a lot of tasks, which is comparable to a "ground bounce", and its inferior for the very best audio quality having such a delay*. So indeed, i feel that a good dedicated audio chip can be supreme: A dedicated audio solution (a own chip) is able to reduce that delay a huge margin because it wont do any other actions apart from sound processing and isnt "busy" with many other tasks. *Funnily enough, the delay is increasing at higher CPU load or when to much CPU cycles are used (CPU time), so its not even stable and difficult to create a great sound that way. Its one of the reasons why i do believe, a good CPU giving better (more accurate) audio because it got more cycles left in order to deliver the bits more accurate in time, that will even affect static sources (without real time physics). Some people dont take the sound chip matters serious because they dont know the background or are underestimating that matter but i dont, i find its important having such a solution for further advancement of the audio processing capabilitys. Although, i think, when there isnt very good audio equipment the hearable difference is very limited, so the equipment is critical for further improvement

wagex said:

its not just playing a general mp3 file that is the same no matter...

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MP3 is such a aged, lossy and inaccurate format that it truly is hilarious why it became such a huge success on the mainstream... any true audio equipment would be able to reveal a lot of loss. Although, its perfectly hitting the real issue. Because of those facts i do believe: Most people are having inferior equipment and thats why they cant even hear the difference and are taking the audio matter not serious at all. They may just have in mind: "I want gaming power... i want eye candy and FPS and a good monitor and what else. But good audio, whats that? Lets just take those tiny, almost for free, cheap loudspeakers from Wallmart and then lets have fun... "


Although, i believe its correct that the mid range may get the first 20 nm refresh. Its a very lucrative market and it may create lot of hassle leaving those buyers in the cold.

Although, i think, when there isnt very good audio equipment the hearable difference is very limited, so the equipment is critical for further improvement

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so your saying without a good set of speakers or headphones you wont be able to hear the difference the sound chip is going to make? its way beyond audio quality. you could tell the difference with a pair of $1 ear buds.

as for the load on the cpu im sure it will be very minimal, idk what the main cpu of the system would have to do with it besides assigning it minimal resources the gpu will be doing all the calculating.

and i dont understand why you keep saying their lowest end card that is just as fast as their last series mid cards is a piece of crap just because its a rebrand. so the 770 is a piece of crap too then? its a gtx 680.

considering this "low end turd" is nearly as fast as a 6970... i dont see the problem. heck my main card is an oc'd 6950 and it doesnt break a sweat playing any current games. and the 650x is a low end card no one should be purchasing it expecting to play with max settings on every new game.

in short i dont understand why you keep saying this series is all crappy.

260X is a 7790 and about same performance such as a 650 TI OC (there is OCd out of the box cards) or a 650 TI boost, so those cards arnt "low end" they are challenging the 260X, thats fact. The aged 6950 is at least comparable in performance and the 7850 is a bit ahead, not by that much but they got the edge as far as i can tell. On top of that the 6950 can now be gotten for very few bucks, so price/performance is higher. Regarding AA, the slow memory bus and low ROP count of the 260X is able to cut its wings, and in term of high AA, even the 6950 may outperform that card. So its a rather mediocre gamer card and Nvidia got comparable offers for a full year already.

I think, regarding audio quality, we have to separate the "physics" from the "general" audio quality. The physics itself isnt general audio quality, but even the physics quality is increased a lot when there is good audio equipment resulting into general quality. Its possible to use headphones and hear a noticeable "increase" regarding sound physics but its still no match compared to real audio equipment.

So, there is probably not much general audio quality needed in order to hear "good sound physics", as long as that kind of physics isnt much more than the increase or decrease of noise in order to create a audible space. But even more complicated when the exact direction of a sound have to be executed. Gonna be hard with just 2 speakers, but according to AMD they can do magics and create the audible space out of 2 speakers or a pair of headphones, and that makes me officially impressed. Prehaps they was boasting to much, i cant say without excessively testing it. I think a majority is simply underestimating the sound matter in general and got in mind that they can get good sound without serious investment. It may not work that way because audio equipment is just as important than a good monitor, as far as my knowledge goes. As far as my experience goes, especially when it comes to the implementation of the exact location of sonic waves (this is part of the sound physic), even real high end 5.1 and 7.1 systems are challenged doing so and even the room itself is very important, it will need a good acoustic.

But in term AMD is able to do magics and bring some outstanding sound physics to everyones ears... i will just gladly shake theyr hands and bow down.

wagex said:

as for the load on the cpu im sure it will be very minimal, idk what the main cpu of the system would have to do with it besides assigning it minimal resources the gpu will be doing all the calculating.

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Most of the sound physics is currently done CPU side not GPU as far as i know. The GPU is usualy busy at rendering and sometimes visual physics too (Havok, PhysX, TressFX). Although the sound physics development has been stuck for some time, a CPU simply got its limitations handling it. So the devs didnt pay a lot of attention to sound physics anymore, thats at least the stuff told by AMD. I cant tell, i never made research regarding sound physics but i find it a interesting and important matter with a lot of possible improvements.

Its a mid end card its supposed to be mediocre its not a bad thing. Seriously drop that point it is moot it makes no sense the card is cheap you cant expect it to play bf4 on ultra or even bf3. No mid card plays any mainstream titles with max settings

There are no games with true audio even out yet its still in developement no nothing is computing it. It does not exist yet that is why true audio is being integrated into the cards now so when its finally implemented it will work.

The soundcard does all the processing for the rest and most people that would use better quality audio have a receiver that can decode the audiostream digitally itself. Movies wont have to generate any "sound physics" they just stream a pre generated audio stream. Then the receiver or sound chip decodes it and decides what channel thw sound goes to.