AMD Radeon R9 270X 2 GB

[W1zzard]

AMD's new Radeon R9 270X matches last generation's HD 7950 in performance while still coming at an attractive $200 price point. We were a bit disappointed by the reference-design cooler, but board partners will soon release their own designs with custom heatsinks that will perform better.

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[alwayssts]

Someone has to write something, so I will:

This card makes absolutely no damn sense (other than a higher stock core clock).

It takes the 7870 design, lopsides the tdp with memory bandwidth it doesn't need, apparently is binned lower, and is priced more expensively for similar performance.

They took arguably their most balanced and capable sku for the average gamer and went somewhere between sidesways and backwards. I find that kind of fascinating.

I understand the possibility is there for cards to perform slightly better because of the extra bandwidth (especially after cranking up the volts/clocks since some 7870s used elpida ram which couldn't handle a 1200mhz/5400+ clock) but this over-all is a shoddy replacement for a decent card.

While it would have been nice to see something closer to tahiti le in this space, at least it should be cheap once we get market saturation. Should still be =/> 750ti, which I guess is all that matters.

 

[dj-electric]

^+1

AMD may take us for fools. This is an HD 7870, slightly overclocked, sold for the price of overclocked HD 7870s. A rebadge can be so-so forgiven after 8-12 months, not almost 2 years, AMD. This begs for a lower street price.

 

[DarkOCean]

^+1

AMD may take us for fools.

Sure looks that way doesn't it?
rebranded 7870 at the price of a 7950...:shadedshu

 

[Animalpak]

Flop

 

[AsRock]

Thank You for adding the 6970 to the review

 

[Assimilator]

"... 2D multi-monitor and Blu-ray playback is still running at the same inefficient levels that we've seen for the last years from AMD, while NVIDIA has improved so much that they consume less than half the power of comparable AMD cards in those states."

THANK YOU for addressing this! It is one of the reasons I stick to nVIDIA cards... for a multi-monitor desktop that spends most of its time idling, having a GPU that correctly runs at idle clocks saves a lot of power (and heat).

 

[librin.so.1]

Typical power consumption during gaming sits right between HD 7970 and HD 7970 GHz Edition, which is of no surprise, and reasonable. Furmark maximum power is extremely high on the other hand. It rivals the power consumption of previous generation dual GPU cards!

I believe this is a copypasta error from the MSI R9 280X GAMING 3 GB review.

 

[Sasqui]

Memories of the 6xxx series launch. Not much of an upgrade from 5xxx... actually, they went retrograde.

The 280 is a little more promising, but meh.

 

[The Quim Reaper]

It's taken them 2 yrs to come up with this pitiful exercise in re branding...what an utter waste of time.

Worse price performance than the cards they replace, yet they still get a near 90% 'highly recommended' score.



Lol...selling their souls at the crossroads, just to keep in the good books of the GPU makers.

Pathetic.

 

[Yellow&Nerdy?]

So... A OC'd 7870 with a new name and the 7950's price tag? Seriously AMD? This card needs a price cut to about 150 - 175$ to make any sense. Otherwise it's a bloody downgrade, not an upgrade... You might as well buy the 7950, it even has 3GB of VRAM.

 

[BiggieShady]

This is ridiculous, when NVidia did this with GTX 680 and GTX 770, rebadged card went for $100 less.

 

[NeoXF]

Uhm, it performs on-par with a (non-Boost) HD 7950... and it costs less, yes less, don't give me BS links of super-duper-ultra-trooper savings on this or that HD 7950 model, I'm talking about a GPUs average price on the market w/ rebates or special offers, because guess what, R9 270X will have those in a little while too.

This is ridiculous, when NVidia did this with GTX 680 and GTX 770, rebadged card went for $100 less.

1. Those cards where also more than twice more expensive, either talk in percentages or don't talk at all, big numbers are a gimmick.

2. GTX 680 didn't cost 500 bucks when GTX 770 launched, but obviously less, just like how HD 7870 and HD 7950 don't cost 350 respectively 450 USD at the current time.

3. It's about as fast as HD 7950 and priced somewhere between 7870 and 7950. Drawback is only 2GB of VRAM tho.


OMG AMD how dare you rip us off like that. Right? *sigh*


The tech might not be there for the most part of the new cards, but it does bring a decent breath of fresh air to the GPU market and it doesn't hate your wallet while it's at it.

 

[a_ump]

HD 7XXX is moo'ing about now.

 

[BiggieShady]

1. Those cards where also more than twice more expensive, either talk in percentages or don't talk at all, big numbers are a gimmick.

2. GTX 680 didn't cost 500 bucks when GTX 770 launched, but obviously less, just like how HD 7870 and HD 7950 don't cost 350 respectively 450 USD at the current time.

You obviously assume prices drop at the same time everywhere on earth. When GTX 770 launched, in most of Europe GTX 680 prices were much higher compared to GTX 770 ... about 36% higher in non gimmicky numbers

 

[sweet]

You obviously assume prices drop at the same time everywhere on earth. When GTX 770 launched, in most of Europe GTX 680 prices were much higher compared to GTX 770 ... about 36% higher in non gimmicky numbers

This card trades blows with 760, which place 50$ above, in certain games, and you still whine about the price? Why don't you complain about 760????
This re-brand doesn't make many sense, but price-per-performance wise, it still jokes on nVidia's price tags.

 

[mastershake575]

Not that exciting at all. The 1050mhz version of the 7870 has been on sale for like $165-180 dollars since March so this isn't really that great of a deal.

I'm looking for a decent card for my secondary build and its looking like I have to pass on this card since the 7950 is a better value (The Sapphire Dual X 7950 Boost is currently $210 on newegg not including the $20 rebate).

7950 boost is faster while having more overclocking potential (the 7870XT also has more overclocking potential and its currently on newegg for $180 brand new, $150 after rebate)