AMD unveils R7 and R9 300 series of cards

AMD has taken the wraps off five new cards in its Radeon R7 and R9 300 series line-up. The new cards comprise a versatile offering in terms of price and performance that should meet the demands of gamers with varying budgets and expectations.

Image Source: AMD

Image Source: AMD

AMD has unveiled the Radeon R7 and R9 300 series of cards at the E3 gaming expo. Richard Huddy, AMD's Chief Gaming Scientist, underscored the announcement with the loaded statement that these cards comprised the base of AMD's next-generation GPU line-up, no doubt as part of the build-up toward the real stars of the day.

But that's not to say that the new Radeon R7 and R9 300 cards are pushovers. Here's a quick summary of the specifications that we have available now, along with their launch prices:-

Model
AMD Radeon R9 390X
AMD Radeon R9 390
AMDRadeon R9 380
AMDRadeon R7 370
AMD Radeon R7 360
Manufacturing Process
28nm
28nm
28nm
28nm
28nm
Core Clock
Up to 1050MHz
Up to 1000MHz
Up to 970MHz
Up to 975MHz
Up to 1050MHz
Stream Processors
2816
2560
1792
1024
768
Onboard Memory
8GB GDDR5
8GB GDDR5
4GB GDDR5
2GB / 4GB GDDR5
2GB GDDR5
DDR Memory Bus
512-bit
512-bit
256-bit
256-bit
128-bit
Memory Bandwidth
384GB/s
384GB/s
182.4GB/s
179.2GB/s
112GB/s
PCI Express Interface
PCIe ver 3.0 x16
PCIe ver 3.0 x16
PCIe ver 3.0 x16
PCIe ver 3.0 x16
PCIe ver 3.0 x16
Molex Power Connectors
1 x 6-pin, 1 x 8-pin
1 x 6-pin, 1 x 8-pin
2 x 6-pin
1 x 6-pin
1 x 6-pin
AMD TrueAudio Technology
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Launch Price
US$429
US$329
US$199
US$149
US$109

It's definitely about high time that AMD refreshed its graphics cards, especially given the free reign that NVIDIA has had over the first half of 2015. The new Radeon R7 and R9 300 series cards are spread out across quite a wide price range, which means that the entire product line-up is poised to cater to an equally wide range of gamers with varying needs.

The Radeon R7 360 and R7 370 will target gamers on a budget who mainly play multiplayer online games at 1080p resolutions. They will also support something AMD calls Frame Rate Target Control (FRTC) which allows gamers to limit their frame rates in situations where having the highest frame rates aren't the top priority. By saving on all these excess frames rendered, AMD is able to achieve considerable power savings and build cards that will run cooler and quieter.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/gLyU7aabOdE

Furthermore, they will support Virtual Super Resolution (VSR), which is essentially AMD's answer to NVIDIA's Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR). So even if your display is capped at 1080p, you'll be able to re-render your games at higher resolutions and dynamically rescale them for your display, but with improved quality and detail.

The higher-end Radeon R9 380, 390 and 390X will also support FRTC and VSR, but are targeted at more demanding gamers who want to play games at 1440p resolutions or higher. This is evinced by the 8GB of GDDR5 memory on the Radeon R9 390X and R9 390 and their wider memory bus.

But while last generation's R9 290 cards comprised the flagship of the line-up, the R9 390 cards aren't quite aimed at the highest end of the market. The Radeon R9 390X is over US$100 cheaper than the R9 290X was at launch (it cost US$549) and it's clear that the flagship position has since been ceded to the AMD Radeon Fury X.

Fortunately, AMD has decided that gamers won't have to wait much longer to get their hands on these cards. All Radeon R7 and R9 300 series cards will be available starting this Thursday, 18 June. They will of course also support the upcoming DirectX 12 API and AMD Free Sync, with just one exception. As we reported earlier in our coverage on the OEM versions of some of these cards, the Radeon R7 370 will not support AMD Free Sync because it is based on the older Pitcairn architecture.

Source: AMD

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