Monday, January 7th 2013
AMD Rebrands Radeon HD 7000 Series GPUs to HD 8000 for OEMs
It turns out that the "Radeon HD 8950" that Lenovo's Erazer X700 ships with, is yet another example of GPU makers shamelessly rebranding previous-generation GPUs, to the whims of pre-built PC makers. One of our forum members spotted this page on AMD's website, which lists the specs-sheets of nine OEM-exclusive Radeon HD 8000 series SKUs, which reveal them to be complete rebrands of their HD 7000-series counterparts. If you're into pre-built PCs, and planning to buy one soon, watch out what's crunching pixels in it.
61 Comments on AMD Rebrands Radeon HD 7000 Series GPUs to HD 8000 for OEMs
Sources suggest this was one of the best hiring in recent times by AMD.
I'm still pretty certain Nvidia is going to rebrand mid/top-end 6xx series GPU's as low/mid 7xx series GPU's, but as long as the performance isn't misleading (e.g. rebranding a GK104 as a 780 then releasing like a GK110 as a 775 that performs better or something) I am fine with it.
AMD will make more money because of this so its a good move for them, when they did renaming before it didn't hurt them. AMD with more money = better for us the consumers since AMD can remain more competitive and still alive
You might see things that will put a hurt on your high-end GPUs, but this is primarily due to intensive particle effects that don't add a whole lot to the experience. A good example of this is Metro 2033. (great game though)
Unreal and Source engines do a great job while maintaining wide playability, while engines like Frostbite are tough to run, but look great with effects not often found in other engines.
Edit: this makes me wonder if my 6850m is actually a 5850m, ill have to check that.
I can't buy a GHZ Edition 7970, or ANY BOOST 7950's, or 7870's...they just do not exist locally.
In fact, ANY high-end AMD card is really rare here. NVidia, you got 100 models of GTX670 in stock, and about 15 GTX680.
I'll gladly take an HD8950, and flash my 7950 BIOS on to it. Because I CANNOT buy a 79xx-series card even if I wanted to.
Why do you think OEM's have terrible graphics cards with 4GB of onboard ram? Do you really think a GT620 can use 4GB of ram? On a spec sheet that looks great just like the 16GB of slow as heck ram they stuffed in next to it. OEM prebuilts are a numbers game and big numbers sell. Move on. You can get your panties in a wad all you want, but you are never going to stop it.