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MSI Radeon R9 280X video card review: AMD teaches an old GPU some new tricks |
October 08, 2013
AMD has scored big with the gaming-console builders, earning design wins with Microsoft (the Xbox One), Sony (the PlayStation 4), and Nintendo (the Wii U). Now the company is turning its attention back to PC gaming with the launch of its R7 and R9 graphics processor families.
But AMD has a funny definition of “family,” because some of the new GPUs the company recently announced, including the Radeon R9 280X reviewed here, aren’t entirely new: They’re tweaked versions of earlier products.
AMD objects to me classifying them as “rebadged” because that describes an old product that’s merely dressed up with a new name. In this case, AMD’s engineers took last year’s Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, tweaked its specs, and added some new features before slapping a new label on it. But a company spokesperson has confirmed that the Radeon R9 280X “share[s] the same ASIC” as the Radeon HD 7970GHz Edition (ASIC is an acronym for application-specific integrated circuit).
The Radeon R9 280X lets you turn up all the details in BioShock Infinite—on a 30-inch display, no less.
AMD’s marketing shenanigans put boutique PC-builder Origin Computer’s very public breakup in a whole new light, but don’t let that dissuade you from considering a video card based on this—ahem—new GPU. Based on MSI’s implementation, the Radeon R9 280X OC Edition, I’d say AMD is bringing high-resolution gaming to the masses—or at least the moderately well-heeled masses. A Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition card cost $500 when we reviewed it in June 2012, and SKUs based on that GPU were selling for around $385 the day before this launch. MSI’s card is faster, it delivers several features that aren’t possible with the old GPU, and it’s priced at just $299.
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Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2052312/msi-radeon-r9-280x-video-card-review-amd-teaches-an-old-gpu-some-new-tricks.html#tk.rss_all
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