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AMD Radeon R7 260X review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £113
inc VAT

Same performance as the HD 7790, but it’s still a bargain card that lets you play many of the latest games at the highest quality

The Radeon R7 260X is the successor to the much loved AMD Radeon HD 7790, and it uses the same Bonaire graphics processor as the HD 7790. However, the R7 260X graphics card comes with 2GB of memory rather than the 1GB of the HD 7790, and the reference model has slightly higher GPU and memory clock speeds: 1,100MHz and 1,625MHz rather than 1,075MHz and 1,600MHz. There are some editions of the R7 260X that are clocked even higher than the reference card.

AMD Radeon R7 260X

It requires just a single 6-pin PCI Express power connector, so you should be able to fit it in many PCs without having to upgrade the power supply. The R7 260X also has two DVI outputs, a HDMI output and a DisplayPort output. You may need a VGA-DVI adaptor if you want to use it with an older monitor, but many versions of this card will probably come with one in the box.

AMD Radeon R7 260X

The R7 260X compares well with the Radeon HD 7790 in testing, but doesn’t really provide much of a performance boost. For instance, the R7 260X produced an average frame rate of 32.6fps in Crysis 2 at a resolution of 1,920×1,080 with Ultra graphics quality compared to the HD 7790’s 32.4fps.

The R7 260X produced an average frame rate of 53.7fps at a resolution of 1,920×1,080 with Ultra graphics quality and 4x antialiasing, compared to the HD 7790’s slightly higher average frame rate of 54.4fps. We increased Dirt Showdown’s resolution to 2,560×1,440, kept all other settings the same and re-ran the benchmark. This time the both cards scored an identical 38.4fps.

AMD Radeon R7 260X

Sadly, the R7 260X failed our Crysis 3 benchmark at a resolution of 1,920,1080 with all the graphics options set to the highest possible value. However, the R7 260X did produce an average frame rate of 26.6fps with graphics quality options set to Medium.

The R7 260X produced much the same average frame rates as the HD 7790 in our real-world testing, but that isn’t a bad thing. The HD 7790 is a cracking card that’ll let you play many of the latest games at the highest settings in Full HD, and so will the R7 260X. The R7 260X is the same price as the outgoing HD 7790, but it doesn’t provide a significant performance boost. There’s no reason to upgrade from an HD 7790, but for a new PC the R7 260X is the best sub-£120 card.

Basic Specifications

Price £113
Rating *****
Details www.amd.com
Award Best Buy
Interface PCI Express x16 3.0
Crossfire/SLI CrossFire
Slots taken up 2
Memory 2048MB GDDR5
Memory interface 128-bit
GPU clock speed 1.10GHz
Memory speed 1.63GHz
Card length 170mm

Features

Architecture 896 stream processors
Anti aliasing 8x
Anisotropic filtering 16x

Connectors

DVI outputs 2
VGA outputs 0
S-video output no
S-Video input no
Composite outputs no
Composite inputs no
Component outputs no
HDMI outputs 1
Power leads required 1x 6-pin PCI Express

Extras

Accessories none

Buying Information

Warranty one year RTB
Price £113
Supplier http://www.scan.co.uk
Details www.amd.com

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