Home Gaming AMD wont just be “the cheaper solution”

AMD wont just be “the cheaper solution”

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AMD

AMD has a reputation among gamers for delivering the best price to performance. They’re the go-to-guys to eke the best performance out of the tightest budget. In short, when it comes to building a PC, they’re the cost-effective solution. It’s also often meant that the company doesn’t have a competitive enthusiast level part when compared to Intel. That’s changing.

“It can’t just be that we’re the cheaper solution,” AMD said, adding that it’ll be refocusing its efforts on performance. When it comes to CPU’s AMD still can’t really compete with Intel’s i7.

“It’s extraordinarily important to ensure that we have competitive, high-performance cores,” said CEO Lisa Su (Via Ars Technica) “We have reduced our low-end PC exposure. When you look at AMD’s historical business, we were very, very heavily concentrated in consumer, low end PCs, that was actually our speciality.

However, when you look at that market, there has been so much volatility, especially at the intersection between tablets and PCs and differentiation hasn’t been there… very clearly, we are an x86 company. We have tremendous x86 heritage, and opportunity to lead in that area. We are absolutely going to invest in high-performance x86.”

That’s as far as their CPU’s go. Right now though, they’ve lost the price-to-performance war with Nvidia, whose relatively affordable GTX 970 claims that crown. For now.

AMD’s next enthusiast-level card will be available in a few months, bringing next-generation technologies like HBM stacked memory. Unfortunately, its other cards have now been confirmed to be rebrands, or retuned models of their previous cards. AMD’s revealed the specs of the R9-380, 370 and 360 cards, and according to hexus.net:

  • The AMD Radeon R9 380 is based on the current retail Radeon R9 285 card
  • The AMD Radeon R9 370 is based on the current retail Radeon R7 265 card with a little more GPU clock speed applied
  • The AMD Radeon R9 360 is based on the current Radeon R9 260 OEM card

In the future, AMD will no longer focus on being the low-cost solution. And that’s a good thing. Intel needs the competition.

Last Updated: May 8, 2015

34 Comments

  1. Greylingad[syntax error]

    May 8, 2015 at 14:36

    I’m quite afraid that it might be too little too late, either that or they’re going to pull one massive rabbit out of a really tiny little hat….

    Reply

  2. Kensei Seraph

    May 8, 2015 at 14:41

    I’m thinking of going home now…
    I’ve done absolutely nothing productive all day and it’s not likely to change in the next 20 minutes…

    F**k it, I’m going home.
    http://i.imgur.com/C8WFUdk.gif

    Reply

    • Captain JJ Fantasticus

      May 8, 2015 at 14:48

      I wish I had early Fridays. Earliest I’ve ever been able to leave was 4:30 and that was because I was getting married the next day.

      Reply

    • Mossel

      May 8, 2015 at 15:06

      Fuckit. You convinced me. *packs up books

      Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      May 8, 2015 at 15:07

      You work for Eskom?

      Reply

      • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

        May 8, 2015 at 15:19

        If he did, he probably wouldn’t have come in to work today….

        Reply

        • Captain JJ Fantasticus

          May 8, 2015 at 15:41

          Very true

          Reply

    • Greylingad[CNFRMD]

      May 8, 2015 at 15:28

      I’ll be practising my Bold skills… CONFIRMED

      Reply

  3. Captain JJ Fantasticus

    May 8, 2015 at 14:47

    AMD IS the solution

    Reply

  4. The Illuminaartjie

    May 8, 2015 at 14:49

    I *might* think about an AMD CPU next upgrade.
    Used to use them and then the Core2 and i-series came out and AMD was blown away.

    That said, my budget these days point to AMD…

    Reply

    • Captain JJ Fantasticus

      May 8, 2015 at 14:51

      Apart from my overly-enthusiastic comment before. I really love my Intel CPU’s. They’re bulletproof.
      But I’m sticking with AMD GPU

      Reply

      • The Illuminaartjie

        May 8, 2015 at 14:55

        I have not had a Nvidia GPU since… my 6600GTS. (About 8 years ago I think?)

        Also, I only really do research on my next upgrade when the time arrives so I read the articles, but I don’t really pay attention to who’s winning the gfx war atm.

        But I do love my HD7890

        Reply

        • ReaperOfSquirrels

          May 8, 2015 at 15:31

          I haven’t had an Nvidia GPU since the GeForce Pro.

          Reply

        • Captain JJ Fantasticus

          May 8, 2015 at 15:42

          I used to only buy Nvidia.
          Then had issues with two consecutive cards and switched to AMD.
          So my experience with AMD is limited, but so far I’m loving it.

          Reply

  5. Pariah

    May 8, 2015 at 14:54

    I genuinely feel sorry for anyone buying AMD hardware. Been there, won’t go back.

    Reply

    • James Anderton

      May 8, 2015 at 15:28

      My girlfriend is still using my HD 4890 (still works nicely for games like Guild Wars 2 and DotA 2)

      But yes, AMD is not even a consideration for me when it comes to their CPUs (since the Intel’s Core 2 Duo release)

      Reply

    • Joe Black

      May 10, 2015 at 17:08

      Aww… Somebody had a bad experience. Me personally I just buy whatever makes sense on price/performance whenever I feel like upgrading. I suppose I’m lucky I’ve never really had any hardware issues apart from one blown motherboard and a harddrive or two

      Reply

  6. ReaperOfSquirrels

    May 8, 2015 at 15:34

    I’ve been looking at upgrade options… and it hurts me to say that you’re better off going with Intel and Nvidia… the i5 gives a better boost for gaming than the A series and FX series processors in the same range… and the GTX 960 4GB cards aren’t that badly priced. R9k and you’ve got a Mobo, CPU, Ram and GPU to last you a few years.

    Too bad I don’t have R9k XD

    Reply

    • Captain JJ Fantasticus

      May 8, 2015 at 15:44

      I’m with you on the i5. I still think it’s an amazing piece of tech for what you’re paying.
      For the gfx card I’m a bit more divided. There are some really decent mid-range AMD cards now that really are affordable (considering you have the dough to buy them – which I don’t either)

      Reply

      • FoxOneZA

        May 8, 2015 at 15:48

        Yeah AMD is the goto card for midrange. They aren’t power hungry and they have more oomph than the 750Ti.

        Reply

        • Captain JJ Fantasticus

          May 8, 2015 at 15:54

          Agreed.

          Reply

      • ReaperOfSquirrels

        May 8, 2015 at 16:04

        R9 270X is about R3k vs the GTX 960 which is about R4k… that 1k difference makes a difference on gpu performance though.

        Reply

        • Captain JJ Fantasticus

          May 8, 2015 at 16:14

          My R9 270 was R2,700 on special 🙂
          I’ve honestly never bothered to go any higher than the R9 270X range, I’ve never felt it worth it myself. Though I do get your point. Some people want that extra edge and then 1k isn’t much.

          Reply

          • ReaperOfSquirrels

            May 8, 2015 at 16:15

            Yeah, the difference in power isn’t huge, but it’s there.

            I’d have no choice but to go for the 270X either way 😛

    • FoxOneZA

      May 8, 2015 at 15:47

      Can get you a full on i5 PC minus a gaming PSU for R5500 so R9k ain’t so bad for a PC that should last you 5 years 🙂

      Reply

      • ReaperOfSquirrels

        May 8, 2015 at 15:54

        I have a decent PSU, Case, etc… I just need 4 items for an upgrade… and those 4 items are more expensive than the 6 items I bought for my last upgrade (mobo, cpu, ram, gpu, psu, hdd)

        Reply

  7. Ghost In The Rift

    May 8, 2015 at 22:23

    Just got my first HD monitor, 23 inch Dell, such a proud moment for me but i found out first hand how devastating 1080p on my GFX Card is, so i need to upgrade, again, just don’t know if i should wait for AMD or just go Nvidia again but jeez those prices.

    Reply

    • wo0two0t1

      May 9, 2015 at 10:15

      Stick with NVidia I would.

      Reply

  8. lygamnt

    May 9, 2015 at 16:04

    Always rocked AMD Cpu’s and GPU’s. Guess I dig the underdogs…

    Reply

  9. Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan M

    May 10, 2015 at 16:44

    What this article purposely to mention is this is only for OEM.

    Talk about fanboy journalism.

    Reply

  10. true

    May 10, 2015 at 23:21

    I recall that evert since core2duo has been out, the AMD has always been the underdog of the CPU race. I don’t see this thing suddenly changing.

    Reply

  11. Sovereign

    May 11, 2015 at 09:33

    amd price + intel performance = holy grail

    Reply

  12. Paul Fouche

    May 13, 2015 at 11:08

    AMD 8350 + R9290X – No problems experienced at all.
    and it was Dirt cheap comparing to the Nvidia/Intel combo that would provide the same performance. <— Being an AMD Fan has its benefits ^^

    Reply

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