AMD unveils Radeon R9 and R7 series video cards

Maybe the biggest news of the week is the soft launch of the new AMD Radeon R9 and R7 graphics cards.  Funny thing is R9 and R7 has been used before to brand a completely different style of hardware, namely some high quality golf clubs from Taylormade. 

*raises hand* Owner of the R7 Limited TP, awesome club.

The new AMD graphics cards are rumored to be considerably faster than the previous generation and with only a handful of leaked benchmark numbers to go by gamers and hardware enthusiasts are scrambling to speculate how the new GPU stacks up against the current Nvidia 700 series.

While the company isn't revealing full specifications, it claims that the R9 290X flagship will have five teraflops of total computing power versus the four teraflops of the previous generation. The boards will ship sometime in the "near future," with prices ranging from $89 for an entry R7 250 to $299 for the mid-tier R9 280X. AMD isn't divulging the R9 290X's price, but pre-orders for the card will start on October 3rd.

With my limited knowledge of the new architecture (due to me "not" being invited to attend the press conferences in Hawaii this week) I can only speculate that this generation will once again catch up to the current nVidia lineup and then quickly be sidelined with the next nVidia release.

Expect some R9 coverage in the next few weeks, if the "buzz" is any indication the new GPU should get many-a-overclocker excited.

Related Web URL: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/25/amd-unveils-rad...