back to article AMD unveils 'single purpose' graphics card for PC gamers and NO ONE else

Chip giant AMD took the wraps off the latest in a series of graphic cards on Saturday when it revealed the Radeon R9 285, which it claims is speedier than rival Nvidia GTX 760. The company revealed its new card at its "30 Years of Gaming and Graphics" shindig yesterday. AMD said that the Radeon R9 will be released on 2 …

  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Linux

    Ok, so....

    1. Charles 9

      So the Obligatory Question:

      Can it play Crysis...at 1920x1080 at a minimum 60fps with all maximum details with, say, a Core i7 six-core CPU backing it up?

      1. Fibbles

        Most mid-ranged cards have been able to do this for the past couple of generations. Since the R9 285 is supposedly the fastest of the current gen's mid-range, I'd say the answer is probably 'yes'.

        1. Charles 9

          My card's a mid HD6, so I guess I'm several gens out of the loop. Let's raise the bar, then. Same specs except at 4K resolution (4096 x 2160)?

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. Fibbles

            In terms of general 4k gaming this new AMD card just doesn't have the chops. Even a Geforce Titan struggles to stay above 30fps at 4k in Crysis 3 using the highest settings with AA enabled.

            Crysis 1, which is what I assume we're talking about, is a much older game so in theory should give better framerates. In reality however, the first Crysis used the superior MSAA instead of the cheap post-processing AA that the sequels used. This means that playing without jaggies incurs a much higher performance cost because you're asking the GPU to generate up to 8x more depth info than it would without AA. Doing this at 4k is probably well beyond this card's capabilities.

            TL;DR: Unlikely but you can't know for sure till you benchmark it

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        > Can it play Crysis...

        I have a 680GT which does this easily with a 3930k. My main peeve is it won't do higher resolutions.

    2. NoneSuch Silver badge

      "The AMD Radeon R9 285 graphics card is faster than Nvidia’s GTX 760.1," the company claimed. "That’s because we designed it for a single purpose: to play demanding PC games at maximum detail better than any card in its class."

      WTH? Isn't this the definition of video cards that have been made for the last twelve years?

  2. Zot

    Hah! Not seen that before.

    So when is Nvidia bringing out their GTX 900 then? :p

    And on, and on, and on...

  3. ThomH

    Sorry, what's it thirty years of?

    Video games are older than 40; AMD is 55; AMD first forays into IBM PC world were 32 years ago; its first reverse-engineered CPU is now 23; its first fully internally-designed is 18. Meanwhile ATI won't be 30 until next year, having been founded in 1985.

    If they're just doing ATI a little early, do this year's products justify that? I feel like I'm being thick and failing to think of something.

    1. Eddy Ito

      Re: Sorry, what's it thirty years of?

      Well since the ATI launch was August 1985 maybe it's that they have completed 29 years and are now in their 30th year. It's also possible they figure nobody would actually care enough to count. I know I wouldn't have thought anything of it if you hadn't pointed it out.

      1. Phil W

        Re: Sorry, what's it thirty years of?

        As Eddy says, its because this is ATIs 30th year.

        Businesses and other organisations tend to celebrate anniversaries in the year leading up to the exact date rather than the 12 months following.

  4. Jeroen Braamhaar

    Let's see some specs and a serious shakedown test first before proclaiming all kinds of hype on this card.

  5. phil dude
    Boffin

    linpack...

    or we don't care...

    P.

  6. Simon Westerby 1

    a little cheap?

    Isn't 150 beer vouchers a little cheap for the worlds best Gaming Video Card.... or am I missing something?

    1. d3rrial

      Re: a little cheap?

      It's not a high end card. I have 2 R9 290X, just one 290x would blow this one out of the water already... They're just showing that AMD are becoming more and more full of themselves, next time it's nVidia again...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "a single purpose: to play demanding PC games"

    Wot, it can't do MD5/SHA1 cracking? Or mine bitcoins?

    1. Breen Whitman

      Re: "a single purpose: to play demanding PC games"

      No. What they mean is it is not for consoles. You don't need as power as console gamers tend to be less decerning.

      You know....morons.

      1. h4rm0ny

        Re: "a single purpose: to play demanding PC games"

        Or they have a living room where they like to game, possibly shared with a partner or family and they don't want a great clunking PC sat next to their television. As opposed to someone who games on a monitor in their bedroom for example.

        Consoles do have some advantages, you know.

        1. foxyshadis

          Re: "a single purpose: to play demanding PC games"

          I guess you've been under a rock for a decade, if you haven't noticed that the era of consoles in the living room and PCs in the bedroom is long past. Aside from all the Xbox and PS games available for PC, Steam has spent years building living-room friendly PC gaming, and in the meantime, console games have been retreating to online-multiplayer that isn't as living-room-friendly.

          1. h4rm0ny

            Re: "a single purpose: to play demanding PC games"

            >>"I guess you've been under a rock for a decade"

            Ever since Tony Blair was elected, actually. And no election result since has persuaded me to come out yet.

            I feel safer down here.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "a single purpose: to play demanding PC games"

            In fact these days the pc doesnt have to be anywhere nesr the front room, or the display. Its all abouf game streaming now. Like steam streaming.

  8. channel extended

    All I wanna know is...

    How fast can it display solitare?

    1. Stuart Halliday
      Trollface

      Re: All I wanna know is...

      Can it play DayZ in Town above 25fps at HD resolution? Can any system?

  9. OrsonX
    Coffee/keyboard

    I wish there was a game I actually wanted to play.

    I feel my gaming desire has finally burnt out. I can't even bring myself to boot up CiV.

    I'm hoping OculusRift will re-ignite my gaming labido, although here I'm scared I'll put it on and then be like Dave in BTL, never take it off.

    Things just haven't progressed far enough or fast enough. Each generation we are promised "photo-realism" and each time it's a lie.

    1. P. Lee

      Re: I wish there was a game I actually wanted to play.

      > Each generation we are promised "photo-realism" and each time it's a lie.

      I guess it depends how good your camera is! ;)

      Photo-realism is over-rated. Rather like 4k video, we could do it, but its far more effort than is required to produce something fun.

      VR goggles however, now there's something worthwhile, though I suspect that like 3D representations of data, you'll still lose out to those who don't have to move much physically.

    2. Lionel Baden

      Re: I wish there was a game I actually wanted to play.

      Go check out

      Toxikk & next car game

      Feels like a return to proper gaming imo,

    3. Wayland Sothcott 1

      Re: I wish there was a game I actually wanted to play.

      You know what. It might be a good thing you got bored of computer games. We have a massive great big high bandwidth super real Matrix to play in. A word of warning, the game's maker has said in the printed manual "That which openeth the Matrix belongeth to me."

  10. Naughtyhorse

    question...

    how many cuda cores for raytracing hard sums :-)

    (says the bloke thats just shifted over to an openCL engine anyways)

    1. d3rrial

      Re: question...

      0 Cuda cores.. This is AMD. They have stream-processors, not Cuda Cores (which are exclusive to nvidia).

  11. John Savard

    Not Certain

    It's not certain that the statement means that the card can't be used to help with calculations, but probably it does not have good double-precision performance.

  12. This post has been deleted by its author

  13. pyite

    "Best in class" means good VDPAU support

    So I don't think ATI has a chance.

  14. itzman

    What I want to know is...

    ...Glancing at the telltale on my status bar sitting at 64C with just a static desktop running, is:

    "Will the fan in this card last longer than 1 day past the guarantee period' ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What I want to know is...

      Isn't this card the water-cooled one? I guess you should worry about the water pump too.

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