Ken's Take on AMD's GPU Rebranding

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    AMD has recently revealed it's new refresh of GPU lineups dubbed the R9 and R7 series. Departing from the long used "HDXXX0" names, AMD has decided to switch things up a little. So, as all of us consumers can see, the R7 is basically the HD77XX series while R9 being the HD78XX & HD79XX series. If you didn't understand a single word I just said, the higher the number the better.

    So what is this rebranding stuff? Does this mean this new lineup is actually "new"? Well it's a new name but basically its just a rehash except for the R9 290X which runs on a new architecture.

cr: tom's Hardware for the benchmarks

    As you can see here, the R7 260X is a stepped up HD7790, the R9 270X a stepped up HD7870 and the R9 280X (presumably) a stepped up HD7950. 

    So how about the R9 290X? How much better would it fare against an HD7970? Will it be... the Nvidia TITAN killer? We would have to wait and see. If you are building a machine for yourself now, I would suggest that you wait out a while for the prices of the HD series cards to drop.... but seeing that the old Nvidia cards still see no sign of price cuts, I would take my own suggestion with a grain of salt... a lot of salt. Oh and remember, grab the HD7970 for sheer performance, and the new R9 290X for bragging rights. xD


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