This generation of the never-ending graphical war between AMD and Nvidia is turning out to be a hotly contested one. Each time a new GPU is announced, another from the other camp rears its head. This looks to be another of those instances, where following a suggestion that Nvidia may be working on a GTX 950, AMD may have its answer: the R9 370X.
Although this is all still unconfirmed officially, the evidence is quite strong, as EXPreview (via Hexus) has managed to get a hold of some GPUZ screenshots of the card itself. If correct, they paint a picture of a card that while not as impressive as the flagship Fiji GPU, and should prove competitive -- even if it is looking like another rebrand.
The new card will come equipped with 1280 graphics core next (GCN) stream processors, with 32 render output units (ROP) and 80 texture mapping units (TPU). They've been paired with 2GB of GDDR5, running at 1400 MHz through a 256-bit interface. The core itself is clocked at 1180MHz.
Essentially it's much the same as the 270X it appears to be based off of, though with some BIOS tweaks to bring performance up a notch. AMD is no doubt hoping that this card, based on years old hardware will provide adequate competition for the GTX 950, if and when it shows up.
Although much of this was expected, what is a little more surprising is the naming scheme. While it was thought likely that AMD would rebrand one of its previous generation cards to fill the 370X slot in its lineup, it was thought likely to be called an R7. Instead it's being bundled into the R9 line up.
Perhaps that means that AMD will be extending its R7 cards deeper, releasing some even more cost effective solutions, or that it's simply giving less prevalence to the lower end of the spectrum.
What do you think AMD has up its sleeve with the R7 series?
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