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AMD Preps Radeon R9 260 and Radeon R9 255 to Woo Pre-built Buyers?

btarunr

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AMD is rolling out two new Radeon SKUs to bolster its lineup below the $179.99 price-point held by the Radeon R9 270. The names of these SKUs might confuse the heck out of you, the TechPowerUp reader, and our hearts go out to the target buyers of these products, but bear with us - Radeon R9 255 and Radeon R9 260. Not to be confused with similar-sounding Radeon R7 250 and Radeon R7 260, the two SKUs are positioned in the Radeon R9 series, and could offer either higher performance levels than what the R7 260X manages, or it could also be a sly marketing move by AMD to make the lower-mainstream part of its lineup look more appealing to buyers of pre-built mainstream desktops that are "gaming ready."

There are two pieces of evidence to support the existence of the two. First, AMD updated its website to show R9 255 and R9 260 in the Radeon R9 section of its OEM products page. Second, on close inspection of the driver information (.inf) file of Catalyst 13.12 WHQL, we sniffed out three curious looking device IDs, which point at products going by those names. Selling an SKU named "Radeon R9 260" could work well for AMD's "Never Settle for anything less than AMD Radeon R9 Series graphics" marketing campaign.



The extract from the driver information file (which you can find by simply making the installer extract to the temporary "AMD" folder), lists of these entries:

1002&DEV_665C&SUBSYS_29321462
"%AMD665C.2%" = ati2mtag_R505, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_665C&SUBSYS_29341462
"%AMD665C.3%" = ati2mtag_R505, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_665C&SUBSYS_8770148C
"%AMD665C.4%" = ati2mtag_R505, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_665C&SUBSYS_9260148C
"%AMD665C.5%" = ati2mtag_R505, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_665C
Descriptor "%AMD665C.2%" is linked to R9 255, and "%AMD665C.4%" with R9 260. Device IDs of the two also point at R9 255 being based on the "Cape Verde" silicon, and R9 260 being based on "Bonaire."

The product page also lists out specifications of the two.

Radeon R9 255
  • 28 nm "Cape Verde" silicon (derived from the device ID)
  • 512 stream processors, 32 TMUs
  • 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface
  • 930 MHz core clock
  • Up to 2 GB standard memory amount, with 6.50 GHz memory clock
  • 104 GB/s memory bandwidth
  • Draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe connector
Radeon R9 260
  • 28 nm "Bonaire" silicon (derived from the device ID)
  • 896 stream processors, 56 TMUs
  • 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface
  • 1100 MHz core clock
  • Up to 2 GB standard memory amount, with 6.50 GHz memory clock
  • 104 GB/s memory bandwidth
  • Draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe connector

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
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But... the R7 260 has been around for about a week so...

EDIT: wait... it sais R9 260 and R9 255. one of us is wrong mate.

EDIT2: it is R9. Forgive me while i go and kill myself in a quite dark corner. I'm done with these.
 

btarunr

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But... the R7 260 has been around for about a week so...

EDIT: wait... it sais R9 260 and R9 255. one of us is wrong mate.

EDIT2: it is R9. Forgive me while i go and kill myself in a quite dark corner. I'm done with these.

Aar-Nine-Two-Six-Zero and Aar-Nine-Two-Five-Five
 
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So, renewing the HD7850 in an LE form and the HD7750
If the new HD7750 will be called R9 255, many many people will get mad.
 
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..yes yes.... this makes perfect sense.....all part of Amd's plan. With a sprinkle of confusion and a dash of misdirection...... you can sell anything....again.
 
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I was expecting a 512 SPs model to CF with the 7850 Kaveri APU. What I was not expecting was the man/woman who chooses the names for products to be under the influence of LSD+Alcohol+marijuana+cocaine+half a dozen more substances.
 
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..yes yes.... this makes perfect sense.....all part of Amd's plan. With a sprinkle of confusion and a dash of misdirection...... you can sell anything....again.

Why not??? Michael Jordan has been doing it for decades now lol
 
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So now AMD's product stack is comprised of 17 cards created from 7 GPUs (Hawaii, Tahiti, Curacao, Cape Verde, Bonaire, Oland, and Caicos) with no clear distinction between R9 and R7, not to mention that the R7 Kaveri APUs will probably perform worse than some of the R5 discrete cards. Thanks for keeping your product stack easy to remember AMD. :confused:


From highest performance to lowest:

R9 290X
R9 290
R9 280X
R9 270X
R9 270
R7 260X
R9 260 (OEM)
R7 260
R9 255 (OEM)
R7 250
R7 240 (OEM)
R7 240
R5 240 (OEM)
R5 235X (OEM)
R5 235 (OEM)
R5 230 (OEM)
R5 220 (OEM)
 
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So now AMD's product stack is comprised of 17 cards created from 7 GPUs (Hawaii, Tahiti, Curacao, Cape Verde, Bonaire, Oland, and Caicos) with no clear distinction between R9 and R7, not to mention that the R7 Kaveri APUs will probably perform worse than some of the R5 discrete cards. Thanks for keeping your product stack easy to remember AMD.

AMD should just drop the Rx part, as it seems to be very much redundant. :(
 
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..yes yes.... this makes perfect sense.....all part of Amd's plan. With a sprinkle of confusion and a dash of misdirection...... you can sell anything....again.

yep, with so many cards at the same time
and they have little difference among them, so you always say why dont add more $ to get better card
so what you want, what you browse and what you bring home may different
 
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Well the naming scheme for these cards suck. Why the R9?
 
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