In a world without BTC, this card should be $199. I bought a 7950B brand new off Amazon last September for $185 (after $10 rebate), before BTC hysteria kicked in. Now I wish I had bought 10 of them.
Nobody is mining BTC with AMD cards these days, they're mining scrypt-based cryptocurrencies, like Litecoin, and many a Litecoin-clone, such as Dogecoin.
... and then turning those coins into BTC so they can cash out in their local currency. I don't think he said they were used for BTC mining directly. Many miners just mine on pools that mine whatever the most profitable scrypt coin is of the day, and then auto-exchanges that into BTC for them, places like middlecoin, wafflepool, and hashcows.
I bought two 7950B last year for $199.99 each. I sold them last month for $305.00 and $312.00. How does that make sense? Heck, I even used them to mine LTC for a year in between.
I think this mining thing is crazy. I have dual 7950s and tried mining for like an hour. But it was really loud, and I didn't like the thought of running my gaming machine like that all the time. Plus, conceptually, the idea of 'free money' isn't something I buy into. As more people start doing it, the individual contribution goes down, making it less profitable every day, meaning for most people it's a waste of money. Meanwhile, they're ruining it for people who want AMD cards for actual gaming.
Hindsight is 20/20. You could have made a bundle. :) These cards are solid performers for Litecoin mining and were featured prominently on our site at www.coinminingrigs.com until the R9 270 became a better deal. Now I'm looking forward to featuring the R9 280 as the best value mining card. Let's hope they can keep the supply chain stocked enough this time around to keep the price from spiking so high.
The funny thing is that for the first time, i went to Nvidia because it was CHEAPER. Good thing for AMD though, whatever your side is, AMD has to be kept alive.
too bad maxwell cant even win it's price category. getting trounced handily in the 150 dollar slot.
so yeah, the big bad maxwell i've been hearing about for 5 years turns up as not only a budget card, but a poor one at that. go figure.
also not sure where you get this is amd's response to maxwell. as if one is needed since amd already whoops maxwell which is low end. both amd and nvidia have been doing a steady stream of rebadging.
Maxwell just might kill Radeon. The low end Maxwell already has the kh/watt advantage over Radeons. Just scaling it alone will mean that as soon as bigger brother comes out AMD will lose in the KH performance crown and there will be no reason to buy AMD cards. I switched all my cards to AMD to mine in between gaming and i just hate it. Whats up with this microsuttering? Can't wait to go back to camp green!
It's not good for AMD to be constantly out of stock. Retail is raking in the money after buying them around MSRP and selling them for 30-50% mark-up. If AMD still had fabs they could likely keep up with demand.
The reality is, AMD and before that, ATI had always been fabbed at TSMC. Global Foundries, isn't exactly cutting edge nor was AMD back-in-the-day when it comes to half-node fabrication processes.
What is the point of posting launch prices at MSRP if there is no intention of AMD to enforce them? That's like saying you can buy a new car for $1000 but when you actually get to the dealership, absolute sticker shock.
I guess at some point AMD will own up to the reality their high prices and low availability are due to low ASIC supply on their end and not just "incredible demand" as they state. Given this is just a harvested Tahiti die, they should have tons of these 280s stockpiled, but instead, we see another paper launch. Safe to say, someone at AMD really screwed the pooch on wafer starts last year, or the consoles shared the same wafer allocation at TSMC.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that the real issue isn't shortage of ASICs, but shortage of GDDR5 RAM. The Playstation 4 is sucking up a massive quantity (8GB for each console), and Hynix may still not be back to full production after that big factory fire last September.
Why isn't Nvidia affected? Most of their cards have less RAM (you need to go up to the GTX 780 to get the same 3GB that AMD puts on their Tahiti series), the demand is lower since the cards aren't being bought by the dozen by miners, and perhaps their supply contracts are better as well.
I agree that the price gouging is getting way out of hand - AMD is taking a reputation hit, but the AIBs and retailers are taking all the windfall profits. Either AMD should openly market their cards for mining and stop pretending that they have a low MSRP, or they should make it clear to AIBs and retailers that future availability of AMD parts will be dependent on their provision of reasonable retail prices.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a longstanding AMD buyer myself (now, for instance, I'm using HD 7950 Boost, bought for $290 last summer - before the crypto-craze, and before that I used AMD CPUs and GPUs for several years already).
But, to me, AMD as a company does not really even have such a thing as a certain reputation - some of AMD projects are really successful (virtually all GPUs last years, and Tahiti in particular), and the others, like the whole Bulldozer project, can be ill-fated brutal flops (remember the "brutal" Bulldozer advertisements?).
So, technically, some of their projects (mostly GPUs these days) are successful, and some.. see above. Plus, the traditionally usually poor marketing and/or lack of supply of certain products, and sometimes inadequate pricing. So, in case of AMD, you have to check carefully in order to not to buy their next "Bulldozer", generally and figuratively speaking.
Can you really enforce msrps ? Let's say AMD refuses to sell to Newegg over failure to enforce msrps and instead seeks to store x. What's stopping Newegg from saying to store x "hey sell me all your cards at msrp or at 5% mark up and don't tell AMD". Then Newegg sells their GPUs at scandalous prices anyway.
You can't enforce MSRP - and you shouldn't enforce MSRP. When demand goes up, AMD should charge more, and raise the MSRP, dropping it down as demand and supply equalize.
They would be making more money - and they NEED more money. I'm glad I bought my 7870XT (slightly smaller 7950, larger than 7870 - basically a 7930) a few months ago for $120... It is worth $250 or more now! Not that I'll be selling, I don't like nVidia graphics cards in the $200 price range, they're much MUCH slower rendering my projects.
As "The True Morbus" says below: stop fracking and your electricity price would quickly go up again, which would in turn return supply and demand of AMD GPUs to normal levels, as in pretty much the rest of the world.
Well, the whole bitcoin craze only really applies to the US. Here in the civilized world you can get a 290X for like 420€, and a 290 for 360€. In comparison, a 780Ti goes for at least 620€ and a 780 goes for 420€. All things considered, I'd have the 290X if I were going for the high-end market.
But I'm more of a mid-field kind of guy, and bought myself a GTX760 Gigabyte factory overclocked for 220€ two months ago. They're still going for that money. Considering the 280X is going for 270€, it's hard to justify its purchase, considering the 760 is about 15% faster.
Anyway, I spent 8 years on the red side, with my X1950Pro and then my HD4890. I liked the cards, but I didn't like the drivers, so Green Side for the win, really.
Interesting - $280 is how much I paid for my Asus 7970GHz card last September.
The original MSRP on them may have been $499 but I sure as hell wouldn't pay that much for a GPU. Just like $280 is a joke for this new R9 280 that offers slightly less performance than a 7970Ghz card.
"7950B required a very big step up in voltage to hit its boost state"
I don't think this is true at all. HD7970 typically reach ~1.2 GHz at 1.175 V. There's no sane reason in the world why HD7950B would NEED 1.175 V to reach a mere 925 MHz, even allowing the manufacturer some headroom. The chips can't be that bad. I suspect it's rather AMD taking the most simply approach to binning their chips: "that will surely work, never mind being more precise". Like they used to supply even ~2.5 GHz 45 nm Phenom II's with 1.4 V, where they could easily run on 1.15 - 1.25 V.
Yeah, I really hated that they did that. I have a Phenom II X4 955 in a machine next to me... running at 3.2GHz and 1.2V. It pulls about 75W more at full CPU load than at idle, so the CPU should be drawing a total of only about 90W... I think if I put it on "auto" voltage it runs about 1.38~1.4V and pulls 105~110W.
My video card is the same way (7870XT), but as it is a binned chip, that isn't surprising. Still shaved off some significant power draw (it clocks to 1.175GHz without a voltage bump...).
I know Crossfire is a lot more flexible with what cards you can pair together for multi GPu setups than SLI, but I'm not quite certain of just how flexible. Will a 280 be able to Crossfire with a 7950 no problem? Will I need to flash the BIOS on one of them if I wanted to Crossfire them? Thanks for any help!
I just wish I had snagged another 7950 when I saw one for $150 on Black Friday. Either for future proofing with Crossfire and the improvements to Crossfire over the last year or so, or to sell both for $300 and snag a 290 or two when AMD prices stabilize.
only cards with the same gpu can be crossfired. Therefore only Tahiti can be Xfired with Tahiti. However the faster cards will reduce their performance to match the weaker cards.
I have a 3570K APU with the integrated Intel HD4000 GPU and I add the discrete R9 280 on my system.
Assuming a usage scenario of 95% work (no 3D required) and 5% gaming, will I be able to shut down the R9 280 completely (no fan noise, near-zero consumption) when not gaming?
hyperspaced, it depends on your work. Mine is mostly Excel/SQL with occasional spreadsheets rolled in. I can do that on a discreet GPU weaker than HD4000. I can also edit photos and short video clips for spreadsheets. Larger photos/movies see a little slow down, and some stock analysis software runs a little slow, but the CPU is a Core2 Duo :(
Unless your work is more graphically oriented such as Lightroom, Photoshop, AutoCAD, Final Cut, or Cinema 4D, you will be fine with the HD4000. Some "pro" software such as Lightwave don't even take much advantage of the gpu anyway.
I guess if you already have the hardware you can test it. Personally I have gone the OC route on my old system and that requires fans pumping higher, but the benefit of performance was not worth the noise, at least for me.
To have a major GPU manufacturer repackaging GPU's from over two years ago as brand new products. Haven't seen anything like this since the heady days of 8800 repackaging by nVidia and that was a long time ago.
AMD is broke, there are no new fabrication processes to take advantage of, which other than blowing up the die-sizes for every single price point (Increases costs) then they have no other alternative. Though, I would have preferred if AMD did an update to all the re-releases so that they were at-least GCN 1.1.
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nathanddrews - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
In a world without BTC, this card should be $199. I bought a 7950B brand new off Amazon last September for $185 (after $10 rebate), before BTC hysteria kicked in. Now I wish I had bought 10 of them.piroroadkill - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
Nobody is mining BTC with AMD cards these days, they're mining scrypt-based cryptocurrencies, like Litecoin, and many a Litecoin-clone, such as Dogecoin.Aegrum - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
... and then turning those coins into BTC so they can cash out in their local currency. I don't think he said they were used for BTC mining directly. Many miners just mine on pools that mine whatever the most profitable scrypt coin is of the day, and then auto-exchanges that into BTC for them, places like middlecoin, wafflepool, and hashcows.nathanddrews - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
I apologize for not being specific. BTC = LTC to the layman.Flunk - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
I bought two 7950B last year for $199.99 each. I sold them last month for $305.00 and $312.00. How does that make sense? Heck, I even used them to mine LTC for a year in between.dew111 - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
I think this mining thing is crazy. I have dual 7950s and tried mining for like an hour. But it was really loud, and I didn't like the thought of running my gaming machine like that all the time. Plus, conceptually, the idea of 'free money' isn't something I buy into. As more people start doing it, the individual contribution goes down, making it less profitable every day, meaning for most people it's a waste of money. Meanwhile, they're ruining it for people who want AMD cards for actual gaming.shaw - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
MSRP - $280Newegg price - $400
coinminingrigs - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Hindsight is 20/20. You could have made a bundle. :) These cards are solid performers for Litecoin mining and were featured prominently on our site at www.coinminingrigs.com until the R9 270 became a better deal. Now I'm looking forward to featuring the R9 280 as the best value mining card. Let's hope they can keep the supply chain stocked enough this time around to keep the price from spiking so high.Da W - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
The funny thing is that for the first time, i went to Nvidia because it was CHEAPER. Good thing for AMD though, whatever your side is, AMD has to be kept alive.Wreckage - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
AMD's response to Maxwell is a rebadge...I don't think they want to stay around.bill5 - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
too bad maxwell cant even win it's price category. getting trounced handily in the 150 dollar slot.so yeah, the big bad maxwell i've been hearing about for 5 years turns up as not only a budget card, but a poor one at that. go figure.
also not sure where you get this is amd's response to maxwell. as if one is needed since amd already whoops maxwell which is low end. both amd and nvidia have been doing a steady stream of rebadging.
Gigaplex - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
We're still waiting for the rest of the Maxwell line-up, it's too early to call it now.HexiumVII - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
Maxwell just might kill Radeon. The low end Maxwell already has the kh/watt advantage over Radeons. Just scaling it alone will mean that as soon as bigger brother comes out AMD will lose in the KH performance crown and there will be no reason to buy AMD cards. I switched all my cards to AMD to mine in between gaming and i just hate it. Whats up with this microsuttering? Can't wait to go back to camp green!Flunk - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
Yes, it's Nvidia GPUs that are marked up $100-$200 over MSRP everywhere...Subyman - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
Nvidia doesn't need mining to over price their cards, they've been doing it for years. :)Slomo4shO - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
Considering that the R7 265 (Rebranded HD 7850) was announced prior to the GTX 750/750 Ti, I am unsure how you would deem it a response to Maxwell...Will Robinson - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
AMD's response to the Maxwell 750Ti...hahah...beat our 265.(and it is quite a beating)Never mind Wreckage...
Regs - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
It's not good for AMD to be constantly out of stock. Retail is raking in the money after buying them around MSRP and selling them for 30-50% mark-up. If AMD still had fabs they could likely keep up with demand.Alexvrb - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
The reality is that their GPUs have been fabbed by TSMC for a long time.StevoLincolnite - Sunday, March 9, 2014 - link
The reality is, AMD and before that, ATI had always been fabbed at TSMC.Global Foundries, isn't exactly cutting edge nor was AMD back-in-the-day when it comes to half-node fabrication processes.
chizow - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
What is the point of posting launch prices at MSRP if there is no intention of AMD to enforce them? That's like saying you can buy a new car for $1000 but when you actually get to the dealership, absolute sticker shock.I guess at some point AMD will own up to the reality their high prices and low availability are due to low ASIC supply on their end and not just "incredible demand" as they state. Given this is just a harvested Tahiti die, they should have tons of these 280s stockpiled, but instead, we see another paper launch. Safe to say, someone at AMD really screwed the pooch on wafer starts last year, or the consoles shared the same wafer allocation at TSMC.
JDG1980 - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
I could be wrong, but I suspect that the real issue isn't shortage of ASICs, but shortage of GDDR5 RAM. The Playstation 4 is sucking up a massive quantity (8GB for each console), and Hynix may still not be back to full production after that big factory fire last September.Why isn't Nvidia affected? Most of their cards have less RAM (you need to go up to the GTX 780 to get the same 3GB that AMD puts on their Tahiti series), the demand is lower since the cards aren't being bought by the dozen by miners, and perhaps their supply contracts are better as well.
I agree that the price gouging is getting way out of hand - AMD is taking a reputation hit, but the AIBs and retailers are taking all the windfall profits. Either AMD should openly market their cards for mining and stop pretending that they have a low MSRP, or they should make it clear to AIBs and retailers that future availability of AMD parts will be dependent on their provision of reasonable retail prices.
TiGr1982 - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
Don't get me wrong, I'm a longstanding AMD buyer myself (now, for instance, I'm using HD 7950 Boost, bought for $290 last summer - before the crypto-craze, and before that I used AMD CPUs and GPUs for several years already).But, to me, AMD as a company does not really even have such a thing as a certain reputation - some of AMD projects are really successful (virtually all GPUs last years, and Tahiti in particular), and the others, like the whole Bulldozer project, can be ill-fated brutal flops (remember the "brutal" Bulldozer advertisements?).
So, technically, some of their projects (mostly GPUs these days) are successful, and some.. see above.
Plus, the traditionally usually poor marketing and/or lack of supply of certain products, and sometimes inadequate pricing.
So, in case of AMD, you have to check carefully in order to not to buy their next "Bulldozer", generally and figuratively speaking.
Sunburn74 - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
Can you really enforce msrps ? Let's say AMD refuses to sell to Newegg over failure to enforce msrps and instead seeks to store x. What's stopping Newegg from saying to store x "hey sell me all your cards at msrp or at 5% mark up and don't tell AMD". Then Newegg sells their GPUs at scandalous prices anyway.looncraz - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
You can't enforce MSRP - and you shouldn't enforce MSRP. When demand goes up, AMD should charge more, and raise the MSRP, dropping it down as demand and supply equalize.They would be making more money - and they NEED more money. I'm glad I bought my 7870XT (slightly smaller 7950, larger than 7870 - basically a 7930) a few months ago for $120... It is worth $250 or more now! Not that I'll be selling, I don't like nVidia graphics cards in the $200 price range, they're much MUCH slower rendering my projects.
MrSpadge - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
As "The True Morbus" says below: stop fracking and your electricity price would quickly go up again, which would in turn return supply and demand of AMD GPUs to normal levels, as in pretty much the rest of the world.The True Morbus - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
Well, the whole bitcoin craze only really applies to the US. Here in the civilized world you can get a 290X for like 420€, and a 290 for 360€. In comparison, a 780Ti goes for at least 620€ and a 780 goes for 420€. All things considered, I'd have the 290X if I were going for the high-end market.But I'm more of a mid-field kind of guy, and bought myself a GTX760 Gigabyte factory overclocked for 220€ two months ago. They're still going for that money. Considering the 280X is going for 270€, it's hard to justify its purchase, considering the 760 is about 15% faster.
Anyway, I spent 8 years on the red side, with my X1950Pro and then my HD4890. I liked the cards, but I didn't like the drivers, so Green Side for the win, really.
Slomo4shO - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
"Considering the 280X is going for 270€, it's hard to justify its purchase, considering the 760 is about 15% faster."What? You seem to have that backwards... GTX 770 = R9 280X... GTX 770 >> GTX 760
A reference R9 280X would be about 15% faster than the GTX 760... 15% performance for ~23% price premium...
yacoub35 - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
Interesting - $280 is how much I paid for my Asus 7970GHz card last September.The original MSRP on them may have been $499 but I sure as hell wouldn't pay that much for a GPU. Just like $280 is a joke for this new R9 280 that offers slightly less performance than a 7970Ghz card.
MrSpadge - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
"7950B required a very big step up in voltage to hit its boost state"I don't think this is true at all. HD7970 typically reach ~1.2 GHz at 1.175 V. There's no sane reason in the world why HD7950B would NEED 1.175 V to reach a mere 925 MHz, even allowing the manufacturer some headroom. The chips can't be that bad.
I suspect it's rather AMD taking the most simply approach to binning their chips: "that will surely work, never mind being more precise". Like they used to supply even ~2.5 GHz 45 nm Phenom II's with 1.4 V, where they could easily run on 1.15 - 1.25 V.
looncraz - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
Yeah, I really hated that they did that. I have a Phenom II X4 955 in a machine next to me... running at 3.2GHz and 1.2V. It pulls about 75W more at full CPU load than at idle, so the CPU should be drawing a total of only about 90W... I think if I put it on "auto" voltage it runs about 1.38~1.4V and pulls 105~110W.My video card is the same way (7870XT), but as it is a binned chip, that isn't surprising. Still shaved off some significant power draw (it clocks to 1.175GHz without a voltage bump...).
garadante - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
I know Crossfire is a lot more flexible with what cards you can pair together for multi GPu setups than SLI, but I'm not quite certain of just how flexible. Will a 280 be able to Crossfire with a 7950 no problem? Will I need to flash the BIOS on one of them if I wanted to Crossfire them? Thanks for any help!I just wish I had snagged another 7950 when I saw one for $150 on Black Friday. Either for future proofing with Crossfire and the improvements to Crossfire over the last year or so, or to sell both for $300 and snag a 290 or two when AMD prices stabilize.
looncraz - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
280 and a 7950 are practically identical.I think you can XFire: 7870XT + 7950 + 7970 + 280 + 280x without issues.
tuxfool - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
only cards with the same gpu can be crossfired. Therefore only Tahiti can be Xfired with Tahiti. However the faster cards will reduce their performance to match the weaker cards.Gigaplex - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
Are you sure that still applies? They've got Crossfire working with APU + Discrete on completely different architectures (VLIW + GCN).StevoLincolnite - Sunday, March 9, 2014 - link
That's Hybrid Crossfire and comes with some extra caveats. (I.E. Doesn't work in Direct X 9 titles.)juhatus - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
Thanks for reminding, I flashed my 7970 reference to GHz-version, runs cooler now :)minerboy - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
Anandtech should really have a review section that tests cryptocoin mining. May I suggest Maveric7911 gives you a hand?maveric7911 - Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - link
^^ I can help or write another article again let me know guys!hyperspaced - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
I have a 3570K APU with the integrated Intel HD4000 GPU and I add the discrete R9 280 on my system.Assuming a usage scenario of 95% work (no 3D required) and 5% gaming, will I be able to shut down the R9 280 completely (no fan noise, near-zero consumption) when not gaming?
purerice - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
hyperspaced, it depends on your work. Mine is mostly Excel/SQL with occasional spreadsheets rolled in. I can do that on a discreet GPU weaker than HD4000. I can also edit photos and short video clips for spreadsheets. Larger photos/movies see a little slow down, and some stock analysis software runs a little slow, but the CPU is a Core2 Duo :(Unless your work is more graphically oriented such as Lightroom, Photoshop, AutoCAD, Final Cut, or Cinema 4D, you will be fine with the HD4000. Some "pro" software such as Lightwave don't even take much advantage of the gpu anyway.
I guess if you already have the hardware you can test it. Personally I have gone the OC route on my old system and that requires fans pumping higher, but the benefit of performance was not worth the noise, at least for me.
HisDivineOrder - Sunday, March 9, 2014 - link
To have a major GPU manufacturer repackaging GPU's from over two years ago as brand new products. Haven't seen anything like this since the heady days of 8800 repackaging by nVidia and that was a long time ago.AMD doesn't like to make NEW GPU's, does it?
StevoLincolnite - Sunday, March 9, 2014 - link
AMD is broke, there are no new fabrication processes to take advantage of, which other than blowing up the die-sizes for every single price point (Increases costs) then they have no other alternative.Though, I would have preferred if AMD did an update to all the re-releases so that they were at-least GCN 1.1.