Throwback Thursday – six years ago AMD renamed the Radeon HD 7970 to the R9 280X

With the clock turned back to the autumn of 2013, Nvidia had a clear lead among the performance segment’s graphics cards, where the Kepler family with the Geforce GTX Titan and Geforce GTX 780 cards dominated among models with a single graphics circuit. However, the lead would not be very long-lived, when AMD in October released the architecture Hawaii together with the Radeon R9 290X and took back the performance throne.

Before the introduction of the Radeon R9 290X, however, another graphics card would have time to be launched by AMD. This time, however, it was not about any fresh architecture but instead about the reuse of an older one, in a maneuver that was not entirely different from the one Nvidia made with the Geforce GTX 770. The menu was the model Radeon R9 280X, whose purpose was to take the architecture Hawaii to the middle class.

Radeon R9 280X was what was popularly called one refresh or rebrand as the card was basically a Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition with a new name. The model would pave the way for AMD’s new naming scheme, which left the long-running prefix “HD” and replaced it with a system that would make it easier for the user to see which segment and generation the graphics card was in.

We should not be too long-winded with the new name scheme, but it can be described as good in theory but short-lived in practice. The system of using three digits at the end of the model name already failed at the next big graphics card launch, where the architecture Fiji was topped by the Radeon R9 Fury X rather than the Radeon R9 390X, where the latter was a refresh of Radeon R9 290X.

Let’s return to the Radeon R9 280X. The model was based on the Tahiti architecture and was equipped with a variant of the graphics circuit Tahiti XT which was used together with the different models of Radeon HD 7970. This meant 2,048 stream processors, a memory bus with a width of 384 bits and 3 GB GDDR5 memory. It was worth mentioning that the graphics circuit was run at 1,000 MHz, which was 50 MHz lower than the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition that the model replaced.

But if the Radeon R9 280X was almost identical to the Radeon HD 7970 GHz launched over a year earlier, what was really interesting about the newcomer? Not entirely unexpectedly, the answer is short and sweet, the price. During the past year, AMD’s yield in the production of Tahiti XT circuits had increased markedly, which opened up for the company to lower their prices significantly.

In the end, the Radeon R9 280X could be sold for $ 299, which can be compared to the introductory price of $ 499 for the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. Now, admittedly, the latter card had begun to fall in price, but not to the same low level as the newcomer. The Radeon R9 280X therefore became a very attractive choice for those who did not want to spend more than SEK 3,000 on a new graphics card.

► Read SweClocker’s review of the Radeon R9 280X

When the card passed SweClocker’s test lab, it was quickly established that the model unsurprisingly performed in principle equivalent to the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, but at a much more attractive price tag on paper. At the time of the review, however, the partner card that was sent out was not very impressive on the radiator front, which meant that the editors could not hand out any awards.

The week after the launch, however, there was a return visit of the Radeon R9 280X, when a new trio of partner cards appeared in the test lab. This time it was much more interesting models that appeared, which meant that the awards could begin to be handed out. In fact, the Asus variant impressed so much that it took home the coveted “Top Class” stamp.

This is how the Radeon R9 280X performs in 2019

The Radeon R9 280X may be a six-year-old graphics card, but considering how well the architecture Tahiti and the “predecessor” Radeon HD 7970 did, there is some hope of still being able to play modern titles with the old one. We upload the test rig and drive through some fast rounds of 3DMark as well as the games Battlefield 1 and Rise of the Tomb Raider at a resolution of 1,920 × 1,080 pixels.

In 3DMark, the Radeon R9 280X is not completely unexpectedly placed at the bottom of the table, but it is still interesting to see how well it performs against, for example, the Geforce GTX 970.

When we roll on to Battlefield 1 with the level of detail assigned to the max, it is still respectable results presented by the Radeon R9 280X, where the card almost manages to keep a cut that is around the golden 60 FPS limit.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is all the more cumbersome with the eye candy twisted, and here the Radeon R9 280X would feel good to drive at a slightly lower level of detail to achieve a sensible frame rate.

We also took the opportunity to run through the two games with lower levels of detail, to see if it is possible to increase the frame rate that way. Apparently, it is enough to go down to “High” in Battlefield 1 for the card to keep up well. Rise of the Tomb Raider is more demanding and can work at “Medium” if you agree to be just below 60 FPS.

Summary thoughts on the Radeon R9 280X six years later

It is easy to discard new graphics cards, which in practice are only renamed models from the previous year. But if it is done in the right way, as with today’s objects where the price was also significantly reduced, they can still find a place and purpose in the market. In fact, the Radeon R9 280X became a really popular model in the attractive price range between SEK 2,500 and 3,000 and also received good support from the partner manufacturers with a number of competent models.

Although the model is starting to grow over the years, it still has enough power to drive around many modern game titles, provided that the level of detail is reduced by a few notches. Not bad pink for a graphics circuit that was launched at Christmas 2011!

Were you one of the owners of a Radeon R9 280X? Share your experiences in the comment thread!