AMD Radeon R7 and R9 - an updated line of graphics cards. Video cards AMD Radeon R7 and R9 family graphics cards

MSI Radeon R9 390X Gaming 8G Review

Appearance and dimensions

BUT– the length of the printed circuit board, excluding the cooling system and the bracket for video output ports.
AT– PCB width, excluding PCI-E pins and cooling system.
FROM- height from the horizontal plane of the printed circuit board to the level of the upper surface of the cooling system.
D– diameter of the fan/s along the outer radius.

A1– the length of the printed circuit board, taking into account the cooling system (if it extends beyond the printed circuit board) to the bracket for the video output ports.
IN 1- the width of the printed circuit board, excluding the PCI-E pins, but with the measurement of the cooling system (if it goes beyond the printed circuit board).
C1- height, taking into account the back plate (if any) / radiator mounting screws to the level of the upper surface of the cooling system. If it is lower than the height of the back plate of the video output ports, then the height is measured to the top point of the bar.

Since the video card in question is based on the Hawaii GPU, the video output capabilities have not changed. Users are still offered a pair of DVI, one each HDMI and DisplayPort. Moreover, HDMI only supports the old 1.4a format.

As for the hero of the review, the dimensions of the MSI version are somewhat beyond the usual two-slot video cards. In height, it almost caught up with three slots. Basically, the extra space was taken by the cooling system, which provides certain advantages.

Printed circuit board

The printed circuit board of the MSI video card is its own, but some reference solutions are borrowed from the Radeon R9 290X.

This applies to the power system. Formally, it consists of six phases, but in reality it is three phases connected in parallel through doublers.

The principle of memory operation has not changed. She has a separate bus power supply, PLL, and the main power supply for microcircuits. Power transistors - IR. The case type implies good heat dissipation and reliable contact throughout the life of the graphics accelerator.

The IR PWM controller is responsible for GPU power management. A similar one was on all Radeon R9 290 and R9 290X of the reference design. And from the start of sales of new video cards, there shouldn't be any problems with overclocking.

The main memory input voltage is generated by the uP 1509P PWM controller. This is an upgraded version with some energy efficient features and higher efficiency.

Sixteen SKhynix memory chips are soldered on the front side. They are designed for frequencies up to 1500 MHz (effective frequency 6000 MHz), the bus width is 512 bits. It is noteworthy that MSI engineers went beyond the nominal memory frequency and overclocked them to 1525 MHz.

The Hawaii graphics core was released in 2015. By the way, about the version or revision. The first samples of Hawaii received the number 215-0852000, in 2014 they were replaced by a revision ending in 2020. Now almost the entire code has changed in the cipher: 215-0880004.

This is worth emphasizing, as many users question or even doubt that AMD continues to improve and optimize the design of its GPUs.

The nominal frequencies of the video card are 1100 MHz for the GPU and 1525 MHz for the memory. In reality, the declared frequency figures are completely the same.

Many months have passed since the release of AMD's current generation of video cards - the Radeon HD 7000 family. The first model of this line, the Radeon HD 7970, was announced almost two years ago! Since then, an updated version of the GHz Edition with an increased clock speed has been released, as well as a dual-chip Radeon HD 7990 and many models in other price categories, but we only waited for the full update of the lineup today. True, the update turned out to be somewhat strange ... But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

AMD can fully consider the past two years to be successful. All graphics cards of this generation (Radeon HD 7900, HD 7800, HD 7700) sold well, and the Never Settle and Never Settle Forever programs, which involved the issuance of free coupons for the purchase of several popular games to buyers of AMD video cards, proved to be very successful, and increased volumes even more. sales of video cards of the company.

AMD is developing its approach to conquering markets, expanding its strategy. So, the company has invaded the field of game consoles even further (which we will discuss more than once below), not only offers video cards, but is seriously developing areas such as cloud computing, and helping producers of video games and other 3D applications in the development of content.

All this has certain consequences and to some extent changes the gaming market. Thus, the introduction of proprietary solutions (both CPU and GPU) in all next-generation game consoles that are about to enter the market has several consequences. For example, even purely theoretically, the development of multiplatform games should be seriously simplified, and the convergence of consoles and PCs in terms of hardware capabilities (both in functionality and performance) will give the much-awaited improvement in graphics quality and further strengthen the gaming PC market.

That's right: not only AMD and Nvidia consider the gaming PC market blooming and smelling. Many game developers, publishers and analysts vying with each other assure that PC games are the most alive and this market is only growing. Moreover, if you look at the diagram above, then analysts expect that already in 2013 the PC games market will surpass the console one, and in subsequent years, although it will yield slightly due to the release of new generation consoles, but even in such conditions it will be quite comparable with them. .

What does this mean for AMD and their competitors? That PC gamers will buy new games and upgrade their systems as the demands of future multi-platform titles increase dramatically. After all, the new generation of consoles have significantly increased capabilities compared to previous models. They have relatively powerful CPUs and GPUs, their memory capacity has increased by 16 times, and they are comparable, if not with top-end PC solutions, but with systems in the upper-mid price range. And given the fact that hardware consoles are traditionally squeezed more than PCs, it can be assumed that new games will significantly raise the bar for system requirements.

Moreover, the PC is always ahead of the consoles, in particular in support of high-resolution display devices. For example, Ultra HD (“4K”) resolution displays are already on the market, requiring four times the power from GPUs compared to currently common Full HD systems. And while these monitors are still quite rare, they are expected to enter the market very soon, and the price reduction should serve them well. Gradually, a new era of PC gaming is dawning, with the influence of Ultra HD resolution and new generation consoles, where many graphics cards in gamers' systems will need to be upgraded.

That's why AMD today announced a new generation of its Radeon graphics cards. More precisely, it now contains several series: the R9 and R7 series (in the future, the budget R5 series is also expected, but for the players it is simply not interesting, since it rather plays on the APU field). The dual new line of the company contains the following models, covering most of the market segments:

Thus, video cards of R7 250 and R7 260X models are designed for the price range of $90-$140 (prices in the US market), R9 270X will be sold for $200, and R9 280X - for $300. Unfortunately, there will be no detailed information about the flagship of the line - the R9 290X model - today, the announcement of this model will take place separately.

But it is already known that the company offers to purchase an exclusive edition of AMD Radeon R9 290X Battlefield 4 Edition. As the name suggests, this video card will include the game of the same name, which is coming out this month. This edition will be released in a limited edition, and Battlefield 4 will not be included with other graphics cards, so the package is truly unique.

Material about video cards from the AMD Radeon R9 290 series will be released later, but for now, we can tell you about this line that it will be based on a completely new graphics processor, codenamed Hawaii (the current generation's top chip is codenamed Tahiti), a very energy-efficient, based on the improved Graphics Core Next architecture and with support for the latest version of the DirectX 11.2 graphics API.

The new top-end graphics card of the R9 series will have a peak math performance of more than 5 teraflops, more than 300 GB / s of video memory bandwidth, it is capable of processing more than 4 billion polygons per second. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Hawaii chip is much more complex than Tahiti and consists of more than 6 billion transistors. You will know the exact numbers very soon, but for now let's look at all the other models of the updated line of AMD video cards.

Since the new Radeon R7 and R9 solutions largely repeat the features of the previous Radeon HD 7000 series, it will be useful to familiarize yourself with detailed information about AMD's early solutions before reading this material:

• AMD Radeon HD 7870: mid-range 3D graphics solution based on GCN architecture
• AMD Radeon HD 7770/7750: New Architecture Goes Mainstream
• AMD Radeon HD 7970: New Single-GPU 3D Graphics Leader

Let's move on to the description of the technical characteristics of the announced video cards of the new family.

AMD Radeon R7 and R9 family graphics cards

Let's take a closer look at all the new products from AMD. First, a few words about the new naming system. In our opinion, it is not ideal, although it is somewhat similar to the one that has long been used in APUs (A8 and A10 families, for example) and other manufacturers (for example, Core i5 and i7). And yet, for video cards, the previous naming system was clearer, and it’s surprising that AMD decided to change it right now, although they had at least the Radeon HD 9000 line in stock. And the “HD” prefix could simply be changed to something another (yes, at least "UHD" - from Ultra HD!). The division into the R7 and R9 families also remains unclear: why does the 260X still belong to the R7 family, while the 270X already belongs to the R9?

But let's leave the dispute about the names - after all, they do not affect anything, unlike the technical characteristics, which we will now consider. On the one hand, this section of the article is the most important: it will provide technical specifications and give a preliminary assessment of the performance of new solutions. On the other hand, in practice it turned out that there are only two completely new solutions in the R7 and R9 lines - R9 290 and R9 290X, and we are not ready to talk about them yet.

How is it that there are almost no new solutions among all these video cards? The point here is that although these models are nominally new, almost all of them are based on the same GPUs known to us from the previous Radeon HD 7000 line. that this is a slightly modified Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition: it is based on the same video chip Tahiti and has the same key characteristics.

The same applies to some other solutions of the new series, although not all. For example, the Radeon R9 270X is based on a new chip codenamed Curacao, but how does it differ from Pitcairn and why the release of a new, but almost the same chip was needed is not clear. Radeon R7 260X is based on a chip Bonaire, known from the Radeon HD 7790, while the younger solutions R7 240 and R7 250 are based on the Oland GPU, which has not yet been used in desktop video cards. However, there is also nothing particularly interesting in it, and the number of functional blocks in this budget GPU is even less than in Cape Verde. But let's look at the characteristics of the new line:

AMD Radeon R9 280X graphics card

• Chip codename: "Tahiti"
• Core frequency: up to 1000 MHz
• Number of universal processors: 2048
• Number of texture units: 128, blending units: 32
• Effective memory frequency: 6000 MHz (4×1500 MHz)
• Memory type: GDDR5
• Memory bus: 384 bits
• Memory capacity: 3 gigabytes
• Memory bandwidth: 288 gigabytes per second
• Compute performance (FP32): 4.1 teraflops
• Theoretical maximum fill rate: 32.0 gigapixels per second.
• Theoretical texture sampling rate: 128.0 gigatexels per second
• Two CrossFire connectors
• PCI Express 3.0 bus
• Power consumption: 3 to 250 W
• One 8-pin and one 6-pin power connectors
• Dual slot design
• US MSRP: $299

This model is located in the new line of the company one step below the top R9 290(X), which has not yet been released completely. It is based on the successful Tahiti video chip, which was the top one recently, and is a complete analog of the Radeon HD 7970 GHz model, but it is already sold for $299 (on the US market). Among the advantages of the model, AMD calls the amount of video memory of 3 gigabytes, which will be in demand at high resolutions, such as 2560 × 1440 and Ultra HD, in demanding games such as Battlefield 4. Moreover, the amount of video memory of 3 GB is the official recommendation of the developers of this game. .

As for comparing performance and price with previous solutions, then, following a competitor, AMD fell in love with comparisons with video cards from many years ago. Of course, the new product will look just fine if you compare it with the Radeon HD 5870, which came out ... already 4 years ago:

The graphics cards in the chart are compared in a modern 3DMark test suite, so it's not surprising that the R9 280X is more than twice as fast as the top-end motherboard from years ago. More importantly, this performance is offered for around $300, which is pretty good, although some Radeon HD 7970 models are already selling for nearly the same amount.

If we compare it with the competitor's solutions, then AMD claims an average advantage of 20-25% over the Geforce GTX 760 video card of the competing Nvidia, which has a similar price. This is probably true somewhere, we will check this in future practice materials, the first of which will appear at the end of the month.

AMD Radeon R9 270X graphics card

• Chip codename: "Curacao"
• Core frequency: up to 1050 MHz
• Number of universal processors: 1280
• Number of texture units: 80, blending units: 32
• Effective memory frequency: 5600 MHz (4×1400 MHz)
• Memory type: GDDR5
• Memory bus: 256 bits
• Memory capacity: 2 or 4 gigabytes
• Memory bandwidth: 179 gigabytes per second
• Compute performance (FP32): 2.7 teraflops
• Theoretical maximum fill rate: 33.6 gigapixels per second.
• Theoretical texture sampling rate: 84.0 gigatexels per second
• One CrossFire connector
• PCI Express 3.0 bus
• Connectors: two DVI Dual Link, HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2
• Power consumption: 3 to 180 W
• Two 6-pin power connectors
• Dual slot design
• US MSRP: $199 (4GB model $229)

The R9 270X sits in the middle of AMD's Radeon lineup and is based on the new Curacao video chip, which is practically the twin of Pitcairn. This video card almost completely repeats the Radeon HD 7870 model known from the previous line, but it will be sold in the North American market for only $199, although it also has differences from last year's card in terms of speed, and they consist in an increased clock frequency of the GPU and video memory, which should be positive. affect performance. Moreover, the maximum frequencies themselves mean little now - in practice, the GPU can operate at an even higher frequency, and the R9 270X will be closer in speed to the Radeon HD 7950 than to the HD 7870.

The model under consideration has a video memory capacity of two gigabytes, which is quite enough for resolutions up to 1920×1080(1200) even in modern demanding games at high settings. Traditionally, the performance and price of new products are compared with previous solutions. This time, for comparison, we also took a four-year-old Radeon HD 5850 model, which at one time even had a slightly higher price:

Not surprisingly, the Radeon R9 270X delivers more than double the performance in modern benchmarks compared to one of the older models. And the second one - Radeon HD 6870 - is ahead by almost the same margin. As for the comparison with Nvidia video cards, AMD compares the new product with the Geforce GTX 660 model, believing that its $199 version is 25-40% faster than its competitor in a specially selected set of modern games.

AMD Radeon R7 260X graphics card

• Chip codename: "Bonaire"
• Core frequency: up to 1100 MHz
• Number of universal processors: 896
• Number of texture units: 56, blending units: 16
• Effective memory frequency: 6500 MHz (4×1625 MHz)
• Memory type: GDDR5
• Memory bus: 128 bits
• Memory capacity: 2 gigabytes
• Memory bandwidth: 104 gigabytes per second
• Compute performance (FP32): 2.0 teraflops
• Theoretical maximum fill rate: 17.6 gigapixels per second.
• Theoretical texture sampling rate: 61.6 gigatexels per second.
• One CrossFire connector
• PCI Express 3.0 bus
• Connectors: two DVI Dual Link, HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2
• Power consumption: 3 to 115 W
• One 6-pin power connector
• Dual slot design
• US MSRP: $139

The third model unveiled today is priced even lower at $139 and is an almost complete copy of the Radeon HD 7790 and is based on the same GPU, codenamed Bonaire. Among the differences between the new model and the old one from the previous line is a slightly increased frequency and the presence of two gigabytes of video memory. This is understandable: memory requirements are growing very quickly over time, and this will be even more evident with the release of multi-platform games designed for next-generation consoles.

The Radeon R7 260X has enough performance for undemanding gamers, enough for high quality settings in most games. AMD compares the performance and price of the novelty with only one of the previous generations of video cards - the Radeon HD 5870, again four years ago:

Apparently, the outdated top board was taken in order to show that the performance of the former representatives of the high-end segment is now available for only $139 (again, all prices are in the US market), and the novelty even has a power reserve. Of the competing solutions, AMD mentions the Nvidia Geforce GTX 650 Ti model, and on the diagrams of this company, the new R7 260X model is 15-25% faster than its rival.

AMD Radeon R7 250 graphics card

• Chip codename: "Oland XT"
• Core frequency: up to 1050 MHz
• Number of universal processors: 384
• Number of texture units: 24, blending units: 8
• Effective memory frequency: 4600 MHz (4×1150 MHz)
• Memory type: GDDR5 or DDR3
• Memory bus: 128 bits
• Memory bandwidth: 74 gigabytes per second
• Compute performance (FP32): 0.8 teraflops
• Theoretical maximum fill rate: 8.4 gigapixels per second.
• Theoretical texture sampling rate: 25.2 gigatexels per second
• PCI Express 3.0 bus
• Connectors: DVI Dual Link, HDMI 1.4, VGA
• Power consumption: 3 to 65 W
• Dual slot design
• US MSRP: $89

Perhaps this is the first video card from the new AMD line that does not have a clear predecessor in the retail line, since the Oland chip is used in desktop solutions for the first time (it was used in OEM solutions of the Radeon HD 8000 family, which is not very well known to the general public). This is the most affordable graphics card based on the Graphics Core Next architecture GPU, designed for the entry-level price segment - it costs less than $90!

Radeon R7 250 video cards will be available both in two-slot and single-slot versions, depending on the manufacturer's decision. Naturally, such a video card does not need additional power - it is content with the energy received via PCI-E. Let's see what it has to offer in terms of performance:

And again, AMD compares the latest model with a solution from the distant Radeon HD 5000 family. Now the mid-range video card is taken - HD 5770, which at one time had considerable success on the market. So, the current budget model provides performance higher than the old one, and this at almost half the price! By now, this is the entry level for modern 3D games, and below it in performance - only the APU and ... another new video card from the R7 family.

AMD Radeon R7 240 graphics card

• Chip codename: "Oland Pro"
• Core frequency: up to 780 MHz
• Number of universal processors: 320
• Number of texture units: 20, blending units: 8
• Effective memory frequency: 4600 MHz (4×1150 MHz) or 1800 MHz (2×900 MHz)
• Memory type: GDDR5 or DDR3
• Memory bus: 128 bits
• Memory capacity: 1 (GDDR5) or 2 gigabytes (DDR3)
• Memory bandwidth: 74 (GDDR5) or 23 (DDR3) gigabytes per second
• Compute performance (FP32): 0.5 teraflops
• Theoretical maximum fill rate: 6.2 gigapixels per second.
• Theoretical texture sampling rate: 15.6 gigatexels per second.
• PCI Express 3.0 bus
• Power consumption: 3 to 30 W
• Single slot design

In fact, this is an even cheaper version of a video card based on the Oland video chip. It has a slightly truncated GPU running at lower frequencies, and it is likely that most of these graphics cards on the market will have slow DDR3 memory, which will affect their 3D performance. However, for such cheap motherboards, performance is no longer important. Moreover, even less expensive solutions of the R5 family may appear in the future, but this is a different story.

It's no wonder that AMD's partners are ready to supply solutions of new families almost from the moment of announcement, and even with their own design of boards, coolers and factory overclocking. Indeed, for many of the new products, they just need to flash slightly modified BIOS versions, change the design of boxes and coolers - and here are the new products:

Actually, even practical tests in games on new video cards are not very interesting - you can simply take as a basis the results of those video cards of the past generation, almost complete copies of which are models from new families, and add 5-15% of the advantage obtained due to increased frequencies and tweaked power management technologies. After all, only the R7 240 and R7 250 have obvious differences from the boards of the Radeon HD 7000 family, and the rest of the cards (well, except for the R9 290 and 290X, which have not yet been released) are renamed old boards. And when there are no hardware changes, there is usually a lot of talk about new software technologies, which let's move on to.

Mantle - low-level graphics API

Perhaps the most unexpected announcement, along with the new line of AMD Radeon graphics cards, was the introduction of a new graphics API, dubbed Mantle. AMD, despite good relations with the Microsoft DirectX development team and support for the latest version of this API (DirectX 11.2) by its video chips, decided to take such a serious step. Of course, they were inspired by the fact that in the next generation of game consoles, it is AMD that will be the supplier of absolutely all GPUs for all companies: Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, and from this you can at least try to have some advantage.

It seems that AMD decided to release such an API largely due to the influence of DICE and EA, which released the Frostbite game engine that underpins Battlefield. To understand what Mantle is and why it is needed, it is necessary to bring the point of view of one of the leading game developers. The AMD event featured a presentation by Johan Andersson, the CTO at DICE, who is responsible for the Frostbite engine. He said that they consider the PC to be a great gaming platform with rich features, and moreover, for DICE, the PC has been the main platform since Battlefield 1942, and they promise to support PC games and beyond.

AMD and DICE have been working together for a long time - it all started with Battlefield 2 in 2004. Collaborations between the two companies include new technology development teams working together, the introduction of technologies such as Eyefinity and CrossFire, and more, such as a special 4K demo of Battlefield 4 on dual Radeon HD 7990 graphics cards at the GDC Game Developers Conference.

Frostbite 3 is a new DICE engine, and at the same time it is a platform for many other EA games: shooters, strategies, RPGs, racing, etc. At the moment, more than 15 games from the Battlefield, Need for Speed, Star Wars, Mass Effect series are in development , Command & Conquer, Dragon Age, Mirror's Edge, and more, making Frostbite optimization for AMD GPUs a top priority.

This engine is very modern, it uses "native" 64-bit executable code with the ability to run 32-bit on older CPUs, the capabilities of eight CPU cores are used, the engine is optimized for AMD Radeon video cards and DirectX 11.1 - it is in this version of the graphics API by Microsoft certain graphical features were added at the request of DICE. Here are just some of the features of Frostbite using Battlefield 4 as an example: level destructibility, imitation of a water surface for multiplayer, complex visual effects, lighting using compute shaders, complex post-filtering: DOF with bokeh, subsurface scattering, motion blur, supersampling.

But when creating PC versions of multi-platform projects, there are always some difficulties. Although the Frostbite engine scales well from low-end to high-end systems, all hardware configurations need to be supported, providing a wide range of graphics settings. It is also impossible to use all the CPU cores in the game's graphics engine on a PC due to DirectX and OpenGL limitations, and the extra CPU overhead in these APIs slows down development and slows down the code.

And some features that are available on the PC are simply impossible to open due to existing restrictions that appeared many years ago. Initially, on the PC, it was so that the CPU "feeds" the data to the GPU, and the close interaction between them when working on the same tasks is very limited. At the same time, consoles have been doing it for a long time so that part of the work (for example, post-filtering) is done on the CPU, and part on the GPU, and their memory access is equally or almost equally fast.

Also, not all hardware capabilities of the released GPUs can be used with existing graphics APIs. Some functionality that exceeds the DirectX and OpenGL specifications remains unused by developers. The slow development of graphics APIs does not suit everyone, and some of the developers want to use all the hardware capabilities, not being limited by the current software limits and using a “thinner” software shell between the game engine and the GPU hardware resources.

Consoles do not have all these problems, since they have a single fixed hardware and software configuration, almost all of whose features are available in the development of games and applications. Also, operating systems and APIs on consoles are a much less thin layer between applications and hardware, allowing for simplified development and low-level access to many advanced features.

Considering that all future game consoles of the “desktop” format (Playstation 4 and Xbox One, first of all) are based on AMD graphics solutions based on the GCN architecture familiar from PCs, AMD and game developers have an interesting opportunity to take advantage of this to their advantage by releasing a dedicated graphics API that will allow game engines to be programmed on PC in the same style as on consoles, with minimal API impact on the game engine code. The same DICE has long dreamed of a similar approach and talked with GPU manufacturers, and now such an opportunity has appeared.

Mantle is a low-level, high-performance "console-style" graphics API for the PC that was developed at AMD with significant input from top game developers like DICE. This is not surprising: DICE develops, and EA releases multi-platform games, in facilitating development and improving the functionality of which they are interested. Battlefield 4 is the first project to use Mantle, all other developers will be able to use this API in the future.

According to preliminary data, the use of Mantle provides a ninefold advantage in the possible number of draw calls (draw calls) compared to other graphics APIs, which reduces the load on the CPU. Of course, such a multiple advantage is possible only in artificial conditions, but some superiority will be provided in typical 3D game conditions; the question is what. In any case, the announcement of Mantle is a very high-profile event in the world of PC graphics, which can give an additional impetus to the development of new graphics algorithms and techniques, facilitate their transfer from consoles to PC and vice versa, and also strengthen the development of multiplatform game engines.

Although Battlefield 4 will be released at the end of October, the release version will only support DirectX 11.1, and Mantle API support is scheduled for December, when a special free update will be released, further optimized for AMD Radeon graphics cards. On PC systems with GCN architecture graphics cards, the Frostbite 3 engine will use Mantle, which will reduce the load on the CPU, parallelize work across eight processing cores, which is not possible in the regular version, introduce special low-level performance optimizations and full access to GCN hardware capabilities. And this is just the beginning - other interesting ideas are possible in the future, such as entire worlds "living" on the GPU, or low-level rendering on multiple GPUs that does not use CrossFire at all.

To all questions about the practical differences between the Mantle and DirectX versions of Battlefield 4, and at least the approximate performance increase that is expected, AMD representatives answered in silence. Apparently, this is due to the fact that the work of DICE has not yet been completed and so far there are not even approximate figures from them. Moreover, Mantle still has more questions than answers. How will the low-level Mantle driver work with its direct access to GPU resources on a DirectX Windows operating system, which manage GPU resources themselves? How will these resources be shared between the Mantle game application and the Windows system?

Answers to these questions and more are expected no earlier than mid-November 2013, when the AMD Developer Summit will be held, which will reveal the technical details of the implementation of Mantle, the list of partners, and even show demo programs. We really hope to get all the information you are interested in, as well as to find out about those developers who are interested in this API, as this is something new in 3D graphics on the PC. Something that could theoretically change the industry. Or maybe not if, for example, manufacturers of game engines and games decide that it will be too expensive for them to develop two directions at once (DirectX and Mantle).

TrueAudio sound processing technology

Another unexpected and curious announcement from AMD was the technology associated with ... sound. In general, AMD has always paid a lot of attention to sound. In 2006, they first released solutions capable of transmitting audio data over an HDMI cable directly from ATI Radeon HD 2000 series video cards, in 2008 they made support for DisplayPort audio in the ATI Radeon HD 3600, in 2009 - support for high-frequency audio transmission. bitrate over HDMI in the Radeon HD 5800 series, and so on.

But all this was not connected with the actual sound processing. With the release of the Radeon R7 and R9 series, the company introduced AMD TrueAudio technology to the world, a programmable audio engine that appeared in some of the graphics cards released as part of the new series. Yes, unfortunately, TrueAudio is only supported on AMD Radeon R7 260X and unannounced top R9 series solutions. This is understandable: only Bonaire and Hawaii chips are the newest in terms of technology, they have the GCN 1.1 architecture and other innovations, including TrueAudio support. And this is one of the most important limitations.

What is TrueAudio? On the PC, and in games in particular, support for hardware sound processing has long been consigned to oblivion. First, such giants as Aureal were absorbed (a very long time ago), then the positions of the even larger giant Creative were pretty shaken under the onslaught of audio codecs with primitive capabilities built into the motherboards, and Microsoft finally finished off the hardware sound on the PC by disabling DirectSound and DirectSound3D hardware acceleration support in Windows Vista operating system.

In contrast, audio processing on gaming consoles has always been handled by specialized hardware units. As a result, lately the PC has been inferior to them in terms of sound quality, and in the corresponding versions of multi-platform games, we do not hear what console players hear. What explains this? The fact that universal CPU cores are far from ideal for sound processing, and they are engaged in many other tasks, among other things. The budget of processor time allocated in games to sound is not that big (taking into account the versatility of CPU cores), and some effects have to be sacrificed during software processing.

As you can see, in this sample game, 10% of the processing resources of the available CPU are allocated to sound processing. This is not always enough. So AMD decided to go the "console" route by embedding a fully programmable audio engine into its own GPUs, the first of which was the Bonaire chip on which the Radeon R7 260X is based. TrueAudio technology gives developers the flexibility and high performance they need to process audio with different algorithms, here is a partial list: more mixing sounds, sound level equalization, complex reverb, etc.

TrueAudio provides guaranteed real-time processing of audio tasks on a system with a supported GPU, regardless of the installed CPU. To do this, several Tensilica HiFi EP Audio DSP DSP cores were integrated into Hawaii and Bonaire chips, the capabilities of which can be read. However, TrueAudio hardware is not limited to DSP cores, here is a detailed slide with the architecture of the hardware that is included in some of the new GPUs:

The diagram shows several Tensilica HiFi 2 EP DSP cores optimized for sound processing, Tensilica Xtensa floating point data processors, as well as caches and internal memory (32 KB cache for data and instructions and 8 KB local "scratch" - memory per DSP), multi-channel DMA engine, 384 KB onboard shared memory, system memory access interface, up to 64 MB video memory addressable space, etc.

TrueAudio's power is accessed through popular audio processing libraries used by game developers, and the technology is completely changing the way we sound games. Sound engine and effects developers can use the resources of the built-in audio engine using the dedicated AMD TrueAudio API.

Naturally, in the case of any new technologies, the issue of partnership with the developers of audio engines and libraries for working with sound is very important. And AMD is trying to work closely with many companies known for their developments in this area. At the presentation of the new products of the Radeon R7 and R9 families, several representatives of AMD's audio processing partners spoke about the inclusion of TrueAudio support in their future applications and games.

The list of partners is quite good, it includes game developers (Eidos Interactive, Creative Assembly, Xaviant, Airtight Games), and audio middleware developers (FMOD, Audiokinetic), and audio algorithm developers (GenAudio, McDSP), and this is just the beginning. A GenAudio representative spoke about the AstoundSound technology, which allows you to position sounds in a spherical space around the user not only horizontally, but it does a pretty good job even with a vertical direction.

AstoundSound technology is available as plugins for the popular FMOD and Wwise sound engines and is fairly easy to integrate into games. Support for AMD TrueAudio helps offload the CPU, increase the number of simultaneously processed sounds and is multi-platform, as the consoles also have dedicated DSPs for sound processing.

One of the most interesting features that game developers plan to use in their projects is convolution reverb - reverb based on digital convolution of the processed audio signal with an impulse response (IR). Simply put, this reverb uses "recordings" of real rooms - as if the sound image of the room, expressed in mathematical form.

The convolution reverb process simulates the reverberation of a real physical space based on a pre-recorded "record" (impulse response) of this simulated space. The advantage of this approach compared to the reverb presets we have seen in EAX, for example, is that reverb based on digital audio convolution provides a realistic reproduction of sound in rooms and outdoors, without being limited by a predetermined quantity and quality. presets.

But this algorithm is difficult to programmatically execute on the CPU, since it is very demanding on computing power (10-15% of CPU resources can be easily taken up), and it also needs quite active work with memory during processing. TrueAudio technology provides reverb based on the digital convolution of the audio signal, almost completely freeing the CPU from this difficult task. For games, this means that more complex algorithms can be used with TrueAudio.

By the way, Eidos' Thief game from the well-known game series for many years, which is a simulator of a thief with a first-person view, planned for release early next year, plans to introduce AMD TrueAudio sound technology. This is not surprising, because it is in such games, where the gameplay depends on high-quality positioned and simulated sound almost more than on the visual part, that good sound is needed.

All in all, the TrueAudio technology is quite interesting, especially given the apparent stagnation of hardware audio processing on the PC and its active use on consoles. The question, as always, is the relevance of the solution at the moment. How many game developers will rush to integrate the technology into their projects, given that at the moment it is available only on one video card (Radeon R7 260X)? Yes, R9 290 series boards will appear eventually, and all the next AMD GPUs will contain dedicated audio DSPs, so TrueAudio can become really in demand. Whether it will actually become such - only time will answer this question. In any case, innovations in the field of sound can only be welcomed, otherwise this swamp has stagnated too much.

Display technologies: support for Ultra HD and Eyefinity

AMD has long been one of the leaders among the companies that are pioneers in the field of information output to display devices: monitors, TVs, projectors ... For example, AMD was the first or one of the first among those who introduced DVI Dual Link support for monitors with a resolution of 2560 × 1600 pixels (October 2005), DisplayPort support (January 2008), output to three or more monitors - Eyefinity technology (September 2009), and then this support improved - in October 2011, portrait multi-monitor was supported 5×1 mode, etc. In December 2011, AMD was the first to introduce support for DisplayPort 1.2, and in February 2012, HDMI with 4K resolution.

4K resolution, also known as Ultra HD, is 3840x2160 pixels, exactly four times the resolution of Full HD (1920x1080), and is very important to the industry. It is 4K that can give another serious impetus to the development of all companies associated with images - after all, users have also been waiting for something really new, and here they will have a fourfold improvement in detail.

The only problem is the low prevalence of Ultra HD monitors and TVs at the present time. 4K TVs are sold only very large and expensive, and the corresponding monitors are extremely rare (the number of models can be counted on the fingers) and also super expensive. But the situation is about to change if the forecasts of analysts predicting a bright future for Ultra HD devices come true:

AMD provides connectivity for two options for Ultra HD displays: TVs that support only 30Hz and below at 3840x2160 resolution and connect via HDMI or DisplayPort, and monitors that are halved at 1920x2160 resolution at 60Hz . The second type of monitors is also supported with DisplayPort 1.2 MST hubs, which have recently gone on sale.

In general, with support for tiled 4K displays, in reality, everything is not so simple. To support such a high resolution at 60 Hz, two video streams are required, as one cannot provide the required bandwidth. After all, if to transmit an image with HD resolution, a bandwidth of less than 100 MP per second is required, then Full HD resolution requires about 140 MP/s, and Ultra HD requires more than 500 MP/s! Therefore, such displays are supported by the previous AMD Radeon HD 7000 line when using two video outputs or MST streams through special DisplayPort hubs.

To support split monitors, a new VESA Display ID 1.3 standard has been introduced, which describes additional display capabilities, such as identifying tiled devices, describing the tiling topology and positioning of each tile, attaching a specific stream to a single tile, as well as describing the position and dimensions framework. All this will make it easier to configure complex multi-monitor designs created using AMD Eyefinity technology, because with all this data, setup will be much easier.

The new VESA standard will automatically "glue" the image for such monitors, if supported by both the monitor and the driver. This is planned for the future, but for now, these 4K tiled monitors require manual configuration. AMD says that the latest versions of the Catalyst driver already have an auto-configuration option for the most popular monitor models.

By the way, about the future of Ultra HD monitors. The following models of AMD Radeon graphics cards will support the third type of Ultra HD display, which requires only one thread to run at ultra-high resolution at a refresh rate of 60 Hz. Planned models of AMD graphics cards are ready to support the high data transfer rates up to 600 MHz that this requires, and we just have to wait for new Radeons and monitors with corresponding support.

This section would not be complete without new information about AMD Eyefinity technology. It is well known that the AMD Radeon HD 7000 series and earlier families currently support up to two HDMI/DVI displays, and all other devices in a multi-monitor configuration must have a DisplayPort input or connect using active DisplayPort dongles.

The AMD Radeon R9 Series already supports up to three HDMI/DVI displays with AMD Eyefinity technology. This feature requires a set of three identical displays that support identical timings, output is configured at system startup, and does not support display hot-plugging for a third HDMI/DVI connection. At the same time, DisplayPort connectors can be used, which will increase the number of monitors supported by one video card to six.

Software support: Raptr and the new Ruby

We have already mentioned that AMD continues to improve software support for its solutions. So, together with Raptr, specialized software was created that is designed to make life easier for the gaming community. This software is designed to solve several problems at once that arise in front of a PC player. PC games are a very good thing, they are always technically perfect and have enough options for customization to the user's requirements, but this also has its drawbacks. Not all players want to fiddle with the settings for a long time, adjusting the games for themselves, some just want to press a button and play.

But on a PC there is no such possibility due to the many software and hardware configurations, and there are practically no services like the console Xbox Live. AMD's main competitor, Nvidia, released software some time ago that makes it easy to at least adjust the graphics settings in games, which makes setting up and running PC games close to what is available on consoles - just press one button, and the application will be optimized for specific system.

In the case of AMD, such an application is called Raptr, it is already possible, but it is not limited to the specified functionality. This utility has collected a lot of features demanded by the gaming community into one heap, and at the same time it is not limited to any individual publishers or platforms, but is a unifying tool for all players. By the way, according to the company, there are already more than 18 million players in the Raptr community - this is a very impressive figure.

Other features of Raptr include access to your favorite applications directly from games without having to switch between windows, the ability to broadcast video of the gameplay to everyone, as well as various additions typical of gaming communities: rewards for time spent in games; free games and add-ons, beta versions and discounts on full versions of applications.

Still, the main thing for us is the ability to determine the optimal gaming settings for a specific gaming system from the CPU and GPU installed in the PC. This Raptr functionality is easy to use. The software detects the hardware at startup, finds the installed games as well as their settings, then builds FPS graphs during the game and searches for the optimal settings. In addition, Raptr uses real frame rate data from other users on similar systems.

As with the corresponding Nvidia software, optimization requires only a click of the mouse, but unlike the Geforce Experience, there are three possible settings here: Performance, Balanced and Quality. Another important difference from GFE is the use of data not from a test lab, but from all users who have ever run the game at different settings - Raptr collects all this data and automatically finds the optimal settings based on the mass of material analyzed. However, it looks smooth on paper, but we'll see how it will be in reality.

And finally, let's talk about the pleasant. For 10 years now, AMD has been creating and showing demo programs, the main character of which is a girl named Ruby. In the latest version, developed for the current announcement by AMD, Illfonic and Crytek, it has seriously changed its appearance - it has undergone a clear restyling.

This demo uses CryEngine and is optimized for Graphics Core Next architecture GPUs. The demo uses 17 technologies made possible by DirectX 11 support, including the well-known TressFX physical hair simulation, which simulates 12,000 individual Ruby hairs. It seems that it is the need to show the capabilities of TressFX that explains the change in the girl's appearance - after all, she previously wore a short haircut.

conclusions

Although we will draw final conclusions on the line of AMD Radeon R7 and R9 video cards presented today after practical testing, which is expected on our website towards the end of October, we still allow ourselves to express some considerations. Despite the fact that many of the announced models of the new line are simply renamed and slightly overclocked versions of the already known models of the Radeon HD 7000 family, the release of new products can be generally assessed positively, and here's why.

First, AMD offers very competitive prices for the entire line, from the R9 280X, formerly known as the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, to the budget R7 series boards based on the new Oland video chip. With such prices, almost all presented models of AMD video cards from new families have a very good ratio of price, performance and functionality.

Secondly, the same functionality is only expanding and improving. Along with the announcement of new solutions from the Radeon R7 and R9 families, we also got acquainted with very interesting initiatives from AMD: the GPU-integrated audio DSP engine in the form of TrueAudio technology and the new Mantle graphics API, the development and announcement of which became possible largely due to the fact that AMD has won the role of graphics solution provider for all next-generation game consoles.

Yes, so far, the prospects for these exciting initiatives in PC games are very vague, and it is far from certain that they will become widespread among game developers, despite all their advantages and innovation. We will see with interest how AMD will succeed in promoting its technologies, since this is a very difficult and time-consuming task. After all, creating your own standards is much more difficult than simply using those recognized by the entire industry ...

And the last thing: it seems that AMD has not yet said its most important word in the form of the release of the top products of the line, known as the Radeon R9 290(X). It is these solutions, based on the latest top-end graphics processor codenamed Hawaii, that should become the locomotive that will pull along all new technologies (Mantle and TrueAudio) and the entire modern product line - after all, video cards of this level are always in many ways fashion products that help sell others. So we are waiting for Hawaii.

At one time, AMD engineers were the first to introduce the DVI-D interface, which supports WQHD resolution (2560x1440 pixels). Then DisplayPort and Eyefinity technology, which allows one GPU to display an image on three monitors at once. Now AMD has announced full support for 4K resolution, or Ultra HD. Moreover, the connection to the display can be made using both DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4b, but only at a frequency of 30 Hz.

Low-end segment

We talked about the architectural features of Radeon R7/R9 graphics solutions. Now it's time to get acquainted with the video cards themselves. As expected, we divided the devices into three categories: Low-end, Middle-end and High-end. In each segment, there are several video accelerators at once.

Obviously, the creation of graphics processors designed for devices of different classes follows the same scenario. Namely, there is a basic unit - this is the Compute Unit block of the GCN architecture. By adding and subtracting these units, the GPU is obtained.

The second point: for greater clarity and to increase the practical value of this article, we have given examples of specific models of graphics adapters that are on open sale. The main rule is that only non-reference video cards are presented, which, in our opinion, have their own unique features.

And now to business. There are three devices in the Low-end category. Two of them are based on the Oland GPU. The most productive adapter is based on the Cape Verde chip. Technical specifications for the Radeon R7 240, Radeon R7 250 and Radeon R7 250X are shown below.

The Radeon R9 270 graphics card is not new among gaming graphics accelerators. The model shares the fate of the Radeon R9 280X, R9 270X and R7 260X being their junior rebranded version. In terms of technical parameters, the model is quite balanced. In addition, it has a very attractive cost - 150-159 euros.

Short review

The Radeon R9 270 graphics card is based on the AMD Pitcaim (Curacao) GPU, which was the basis for the Radeon HD7870 graphics card. The main parameters of Curacao are unchanged for all old and new modifications. At the same time, the new model received AMD TrueAudio and DirectX 11.2 as an additive.

The Pitcairn GPU is equipped with 20 Compute Units (CUs), each consisting of four Vector Units (VUs). Each vector block includes 16 stream processors and one texture processor. As a result, only 1280 stream processors and 80 texture units for the senior representative of the 7800 line.

The Radeon R9 270 video card in the reference version is presented with standard clock speeds.

The main distinguishing parameter of R9 270 from R9 270X is the GPU frequency, which for AMD 270X is up to 1.050 MHz, for R9 270 - 925 MHz. Memory capacity of 2048 MB runs at the same clock speed, while the Radeon R9 270X can be up to 4.096 MB. Due to the lower GPU frequency, the TDP has been reduced from 180W to 150W.

2048 MB GDDR5 memory runs at 1.400 MHz. Connected via 256-bit bus. Bandwidth - 179.2 GB / s. The video adapter contains 80 texture units, 32 raster operations pipelines (ROPs).

Temperature, power, power consumption

The Radeon R9 270 Gaming OC Edition graphics card delivers an expected power consumption of 106.3W at idle, which is about average.

Testing, benchmarks

A direct competitor to the Radeon R9 270 is NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 760.

Manufacturers

The following manufacturers make the Radeon R9 270 graphics card:

1. Sapphire
2. GIGABYTE

MSI AMD Radeon R9 270 Gaming

The video card is based on a full-fledged Curacao GPU without cutting down on computing units. It is "supported" by 2 GB of memory with an exchange bus width of 256 bits. This is a video card that is perfectly balanced in terms of technical parameters, which will allow you to achieve consistently high FPS values ​​​​in modern computer games at maximum settings.

Most MSI GAMING video adapters are factory overclocked, which allows you to achieve higher levels of performance without wasting time checking for maximum frequencies and stability. Manufactured using the 28 nm process technology. graphics processor frequency - 900 MHz. Maximum resolution -

4096×2160. The amount of video memory is 2048 MB.

A feature of MSI Gaming video adapters is the use of several frequency profiles with different fan speed settings. At the same time, the difference in operating frequencies is minimal in various modes.

The video card supports:

1. OC Mode
2. Gaming Mode.
3. Silent Mode (minimum noise level).

MSI AMD Radeon R9 270 Gaming is compatible with CrossFire X technology, which allows you to connect another adapter to increase the level of performance. Two fans mounted on the heatsink help to cope with temperature stresses. To "feed" the video card, a connection to the PSU is used via a 6-pin adapter. Board length - 22 cm.

The closest price competitors are GeForce GTX 660 Ti, GeForce GTX 660.

GIGABYTE Radeon R9 270 model GV-R927OC-2GD

Balanced in terms of parameters video card of the middle price range. The length of the graphics accelerator is 254 mm, which allows it to be installed in small system units. You only need two free slots.

Interfaces for connecting a monitor are presented in the form of DVI-D, DVI-I, HDMI and DisplayPort ports. For power, you need a 500 W power supply with two 6-pin connectors.

The model is equipped with a proprietary WINDFORCE cooling system, which has proven itself well. It uses high efficiency large 95mm fans, copper tube heatsink. The fans have transparent blades and are attached to the plastic frame with three small self-tapping screws. Aluminum plates are pierced by an S-shaped heat pipe. The heatsink contacts the GPU through a small copper plate that is soldered to the heatpipe. The Curacao graphics chip is equipped with a metal frame.

Tests

With regards to gaming tests, Lost Planet 3 fps is stable at around 50-60 at maximum settings. In Crysis 3, the optimization is on top, but the speed for playing at ultra-high settings is not enough for such a resource-intensive video game. On medium and minimal settings, the game runs without lags and braking.

But with Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag, the situation is much worse and improves only when the resolution is reduced to 1980x1020

Sapphire Dual-X R9 270

This model turned out to be the most attractive in terms of its parameters in the AMD line of the middle price segment. Based on the AMD Curacao Pro graphics chip, identified by GPU-Z 0.7.8 as "Pitcairn". It is manufactured using a 28nm process technology, consists of 1280 universal shader pipelines, 80 texture units and 32 rasterization units. The processor frequency dynamically changes depending on the load in the range from 920 to 945 MHz. The video card has 2 GB of memory.

The model is equipped with a proprietary dual-fan cooling system Dual-X. Heat is removed from the GPU using a copper base and two 8mm heatpipes. The radiator consists of 40 nickel-plated aluminum plates. All memory chips are in contact with the heat sink through special thermal pads, which significantly increases the efficiency of their cooling.

The video card is made on a compact black printed circuit board 225 mm long and 112 mm wide. The graphics chip is equipped with a metal protective frame that protects it from damage when removing or installing the cooling system. The power subsystem of the graphics chip is made according to a simplified four-phase scheme, which uses high-quality transistors.

The novelty is equipped with the following set of interfaces for displaying images:

1. 1 x Dual-Link DVI-D;
2. 1 x Dual-Link DVI-I;
3. 1 x HDMI 1.4a;
4. 1 x DisplayPort 1.2.

You can also connect D-Sub analog monitors using the appropriate adapters.

In terms of tests, benchmark results showed an average advantage of 23% over the AMD Radeon R7 260X. Due to the higher dynamic frequency, we managed to get ahead of the Radeon R9 270X by 10%. If we compare the results with the NVIDIA graphics adapter models, the advantage was 9% over the GeForce GTX 750 Ti and 4% over the GeForce GTX 660. In general, the Sapphire Dual-X R9 270 video card, according to the results of synthetic, gaming tests, showed fairly high, stable results, which allows you to comfortably play at medium, high, maximum settings.

ASUS Radeon R9 270 DirectCU II

ASUS Radeon R9 270 is a very good gaming graphics card in the budget price segment. The model is equipped with an AMD Curacao Pro graphics chip and is similar in appearance and parameters to other graphics accelerators of the same series.

At the same time, the DirectCU II direct contact cooling system is slightly shifted closer to the end of the printed circuit board. Heat pipes protrude from the side, which slightly increase the dimensions of the video card (length 237 mm, width 124 mm). The cooler is fixed with four spring-loaded screws, after removing which the entire circuit board is exposed. Heat pipes penetrate aluminum plates. There are no traces of solder in the places of their contact, which can affect the effectiveness of the CO. Two 74mm FirstD fans are used, which, according to tests, can rotate at a speed of 1000-3500 rpm.

The GPU frequency has been increased to 975 MHz for better performance.

The set of connectors for displaying images on the rear panel is as follows:

a set of interfaces on the rear panel for displaying images:

1. One DVI-I;
2. One DVI-D;
3. One HDMI;
4. One DisplayPort.

According to the declared specifications, the model supports such resolutions as Digital - up to 4096 x 2160 and analog - up to 2048 x 1536.

The video adapter is equipped with an 8-phase power subsystem. Six phases are assigned to the GPU, one each for memory chips and PLL. Use your own or relabeled PWM controller DIGI + VRM ASP1215AH.

The volume of the video buffer is two gigabytes. Built with eight Elpida W2032BBBG-6A-F chips. Similar chips are available on all Radeon R9 270/270X.

When tested in an open case, the Unigine Valley benchmark only warmed up the card to 67°C. The fans spun up to 2100 rpm with little noise.

Power consumption

The video card was tested in two modes, in standard (standard frequencies were used), as shown in the screenshot, and in overclocking.

The base core frequency instead of the declared 925 MHz according to the standard is set at around 975 MHz, that is, factory overclocking has been performed. Video memory operates at an effective frequency of 5600 MHz.

With additional overclocking, stable frequencies are increased to 1100 MHz for the chip and 6000 MHz for the memory.

The branded CO of the video card did an excellent job with the task. The GPU warmed up to only 66 degrees Celsius, despite the factory overclock. acceleration added only a few degrees at a minimum noise level.

The Asus Radeon R9 270 DirectCU II OC model pleasantly pleases not only with its design, but also with a very efficient, quiet CO with smooth fan speed settings. It should be noted the increased factory overclocking, high-quality element base.

Tests in games

The test bench configuration is as follows:

• Processor: Intel Core i7-3930K (3, [email protected].4 GHz, 12 MB);
• motherboard: ASUS Rampage IV Formula/Battlefield 3 (Intel X79 Express);
• memory: Kingston KHX2133C11D3K4/16GX (4×4 GB, [email protected] MHz, 10-11-10-28-1T);
• system disk: Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB (240 GB, SATA 6Gb/s);
• secondary drive: Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 (1 TB, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm);
• monitor: ASUS PB278Q (2560x1440, 27″);
• GeForce driver: NVIDIA GeForce 332.21;
• Radeon driver: ATI Catalyst 13.12.

User Account Control, Superfetch and interface visual effects are disabled in the operating system. Driver settings are standard.

In some games, the Radeon R9 270 showed identical results with the GeForce GTX 660 and HD 7870. This model significantly outperforms the Radeon HD 7850.

conclusions

The Radeon R9 270 is somewhat behind the Radeon R9 270X in terms of performance. The difference is insignificant and is no more than 7-10%. In general, this video card model will fully satisfy the needs of gamers, since even without overclocking it shows consistently high FPS in many computer video games. In addition, given the fairly affordable cost and good performance according to the test results, the Radeon R9 270 graphics card is quite suitable for creating a comfortable gaming system.