AMD unveils Radeon 300-series graphics cards for OEM desktops
AMD has announced its new range of OEM desktop graphics card, the Radeon 300 series. The new cards are essentially rebadges of older cards and include both performance and ultra-budget parts.
Image Source: Anandtech
When we saw the AMD Radeon R9 380 featured in HP’s recently-announced HP Envy Tower desktops, we wondered if that meant a consumer release were coming soon. As it turns out, the Radeon R9 380 is an OEM part whose announcement by HP was sanctioned by AMD. The latter has now announced the OEM desktop Radeon R9, R7 and R5 cards in its new 300-series at its 2015 Financial Analyst Day in New York.
The new OEM cards are actually rebadged cards from the Radeon 200 series and are based on the same 28nm process architecture. The known specifications for the R9 series of desktop cards are as follow:
AMD Radeon R9 380 | AMD Radeon R7 370 | AMD Radeon R7 360 | |
GPU Transistor Count | 5 billion | 2.8 billion | 2.08 billion |
Manufacturing Process | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm |
Core Clock | Up to 918 MHz | Up to 975MHz | Up to 1.05 GHz |
Stream Processors | 1792 | 1024 | 768 |
Texture Mapping Units | 112 | 64 | 48 |
ROPs | 32 | 32 | 16 |
VRAM | Up to 4GB GDDR5 | 2GB or 4GB GDDR5 | 2GB GDDR5 |
Memory Bus Width | 256-bit | 256-bit | 128-bit |
Memory Bandwidth | 176 GB/s | 179.2 GB/s | 104 GB/s |
PCIe Interface | PCIe 3.0 | PCIe 3.0 | PCIe 3.0 |
Power Connectors | 2 x 6-pin | 1 x 6-pin | N/A |
The Radeon R9 380 is a rebrand of the Radeon R9 285 announced last year, while the Radeon R7 370 and R7 360 are based on the R7 265 and OEM R9 260 respectively. We're guessing AMD is reserving the Radeon R9 390 tag for its true next-generation graphics card for consumers (just as they did for the Radeon 200 series where all but the R9 290 series was based on the existing generation architecture). The specifications of the Radeon R9 380 are more or less identical to the Radeon R9 285, so AMD appears to have essentially slapped a new name onto an old card. However, the other two cards are cut down versions of their Pitcairn and Bonaire cards respectively.
According to AMD, the Radeon R9 380 will be the only card in this range to support AMD LiquidVR technology. It will also support AMD's FreeSync variable refresh rate technology alongside the R7 360, while the R7 370 based off the older Pitcairn architecture will support none of these new technologies.
The HP Envy Tower will be available with the AMD Radeon R9 380. (Image Source: HP)
AMD has also announced a couple of Radeon R7 and R5 300-series cards as shown below:
AMD Radeon R7 350 | AMD Radeon R7 340 | AMD Radeon R5 340 | AMD Radeon R5 330 | |
Manufacturing Process | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm | 28nm |
Core Clock | Up to 1.05GHz | Up to 780MHz | Up to 825MHz | Up to 855MHz |
Stream Processors | 384 | 384 | 320 | 320 |
Texture Mapping Units | 24 | 24 | 20 | 20 |
ROPs | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
VRAM | 1GB or 2GB GDDR5 or DDR3 | 1GB/2GB GDDR5 or 2GB/4GB DDR3 | Up to 2GB GDDR5 or DDR3 | Up to 2GB DDR3 |
Memory Bus Width | 128-bit | 128-bit | - | - |
Memory Bandwidth | Up to 72 GB/s | Up to 72 GB/s | - | - |
PCIe Interface | PCIe 3.0 | PCIe 3.0 | PCIe 3.0 | PCIe 3.0 |
Power Connectors | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
With these OEM cards, AMD is catering to the ultra-low-end of the OEM desktop market. The cards here don't even require external PCIe power connectors, and it seems that the PCIe 3.0 interface will be sufficient to power them. The Radeon R7 340 and the Radeon R5 cards are also low-profile, single-slot cards, which means they will likely find use in slim, budget desktop PCs. The cards are also available in a rather confusing variety of video memory configurations - including even DDR3 in the mix - so OEMs looking to build ultra-budget systems will have many avenues to do so.
Finally, AMD hasn't even included memory bus width or memory bandwidth specifications for the R5 cards, so they are likely lower than 128-bit on the Radeon R7 series. 64-bit anyone? It's interesting to note that the Radeon R5 330 doesn't have an HDMI output, so it clearly won't be used by OEMs selling systems in the developed world. We already know that HP 's new desktops will be shipping with these parts, but AMD says that other OEMs will follow soon.
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