Introduction, Specifications and Packaging
AMD’s R7 260X graphics card has become infinitely more popular since AMD reduced initial launch pricing down from $140 to $120. Of course the competitiveness of the R7 260X has been helped by the fact its biggest rival, Nvidia’s GTX 650 Ti Boost, has been discontinued and is now hard to find. This leaves Nvidia’s newly released Maxwell based GTX 750 to fight the R7 260X instead of the GTX 650 Ti Boost which is problematic for Nvidia as the GTX 750 is a much slower card that costs a similar price.Today we have an R7 260X from HIS Digital, their HIS R7 260X iPower IceQ X² 2GB GDDR5 graphics card. The R7 260X is known for being quite a hot running graphics card because AMD took the HD 7790 design, overclocked it even more and rebranded it. Therefore HIS’ implementation needs to effectively deal with the heat of the R7 260X and keep noise under control. If you haven’t read our launch day review of the R7 260X you can do so here.
Specifications Analysis
Out of the box the HIS R7 260X is just a stock R7 260X in terms of its clock speeds so quite honestly we should expect within margin of error performance of the reference card as there are no thermal limitations a non-reference design can overcome. I am disappointed HIS haven’t overclocked the card and that they are charging more than reference pricing, in my opinion this card is priced too close to the R7 265 and GTX 750 Ti to be truly competitive, we hope HIS are just delayed in reducing their prices in response to AMD’s February price cuts….although February was an awfully long time ago.
Packaging and Bundle
The box points out what some of the HIS features mean such as iPower and iTurbo.
The rear details some of the components used and some of the generic AMD features.
Included with out sample was just a DVI to VGA adapter and warning document. The retail version will also get a driver CD, quick install guide and HIS sticker.
I have to ask myself, has amd shot themselves, and the 260x by releasing the 265 ?……probably, buying an overclocked 260x for the same price as a stock 265 will never make sense, seeing as they cost the same, but the 265 is around 35% faster.
Yes I agree, I think AMD have priced a lot of the R7 series way too close for comfort. But I guess from a consumer standpoint the more options the better right?
Edit: also I think a lot of the problem is when AMD reduced the R7 260X MSRP down from $140 to $120 a lot of retailers didn’t drop prices in response. Then when the R7 265 came out you find a lot of R7 260Xs with a similar price. But if you can pick up a decent R7 260X for $120 then that’s 20% cheaper for a card that is 20-25% slower so in my opinion that’s a decent deal.
uk prices seem to have lowered somewhat, a 2gb overclocked 260x is around the £100 mark, the 1gb version around £89 and the 265 2gb around £115-120 mark, however, there are bargains to be had, this sapphire 2gb 265 is only £99…I think the 260x 2gb needs to be sold around the £79.99 mark, cause retailers here will sell loads of these 265’s at this price…. http://www.pixmania.co.uk/graphics-card/sapphire-technology-r7-265-2-gb-gddr5-pci-express-graphics-card/22080933-a.html?ectrans=1&gclid=CKKS-d3k8b0CFYbMtAodg1AAwA#merch=1&srcid=11270&nopopup=1
$119 in GBP is £72, add VAT it should be £86. As far as I am concerned prices have not fallen enough, the MSRP of $140 is still present because $140 is £100~ inc VAT. Nvidia’s GTX 750 Ti can be had for £100 so there are no reasons to buy the R7 260X for that reason. Also, don’t trust pixmania with your money, they are a dodgy as f**k retailer.
ah yes, pixmania do have a habit of advertising goods they dont stock…..but yes, the 260x needs to around the £80-85 mark.
Notice in the OC page that you said the GTX 750Ti was an OC card?