In the long history of graphics cards, AMD has brought many classic products, but at the same time there are also some “impressive”, but bad GPUs.
A few days ago, Foreign Media Digital Trends editor Matthew Connatser summed up several so-called most disappointing graphics cards in the history of AMD (ATI), I wonder how many have you used?
1、Radeon 8500
Released in 2001, it was considered a strong opponent of NVIDIA GeForce 3 at the time, and the price of $299 was also $50 cheaper than GeForce 3 Ti 500. However, at the beginning of the release, the old problems of the 250 version driver frequencies were still unresolved, giving consumers the impression that performance was very mediocre.
According to Anandtech, the 8500’s actual performance in some games is only half that of the GeForce3 Ti 500, although the current 3DMark 2001 score is very high. However, due to poor driver optimization, it can only be compared with GeForce3 Ti 200, which costs less than $200.
While the later Radeon 9000 series saved ATI’s face, it’s also because of the 8500 to some extent.
2、Radeon R9 390X
Frankly, the graphics cards released after the merger of AMD and ATI in 2006 have done well. While HD3000/6000 can still be criticized, it’s not hidden. The 2013 R9 290X is a beautiful counterattack against the NVIDIA GTX 780.
However, AMD finally fell to GlobalFoundries 28nm Foundry process, and then started a crazy vest strategy, resulting in the R9 300 series graphics card is nothing more than changing the shell.
The test shows that the R9 390X can barely catch up with the GTX 980 in 1080P games, but the opponent still has the terrifying GTX 980 Ti. The R9 390X’s worst problem is that its power consumption is extremely high, not only close to double that of the GTX 980, but also 100W more than the 290X.
3、Radeon R9 Fury X
Launched in 2015, the Fiji core was developed on the basis of the third generation GCN architecture and was also equipped with 4GB of HBM display memory, it was ambitious at the time, and the public version was also directly liquid-cooled.
However, at the same price of $649, the gaming performance of GTX 980 Ti and Fury X is almost the same. In terms of extreme performance, NV also has the powerful TITAN X. Although it is $350 more expensive, consumers are still willing to buy it.
Another problem with Fury X is poor overclocking performance. It may be due to the underlying technology and lack of understanding of HBM display memory. The overclocking performance of this graphics card is very poor and it is extremely difficult to reach 10%. Conversely, the GTX 980 Ti can easily be overclocked by 20%, further unleashing its performance potential.
4、Radeon RX 590
As soon as RX Vega achieved a minor success, AMD started playing mid-range vest cards again. While the RTX 20 series is also suspected, the lightweight pursuit is packaged by NV as a new selling point that I don’t have.
The reason for existence of RX 590 seems to be just to bridge the big performance gap between RX 580 and Vega 56, but changing the soup doesn’t change the medicine, which means that the essence of RX 590 is overclocking 580, and the essence of 580 is 480 overclocking, which leads to RX The power consumption of the 590 reaches 225W, 75W higher than the 480, and even higher than the RX Vega 56.
5、Radeon VII
Faced with the embarrassment of the second RTX 2080 family, AMD hastily launched the Radeon VII, which has the name of the world’s first 7nm gaming graphics card, but its essence is nothing more than the “shrinking” of the product of the Radeon Instinct MI50 data center.
In terms of absolute performance, Radeon VII and RTX 2080 can really compete, but the lead is also very weak, and even the GTX 1080 Ti cannot play some games.
Another problem with Radeon VII is the low production capacity and the huge cost: at that time, the production of 7nm GPUs and 16GB HBM2 display memory caused AMD to sell cards at a loss in the middle and early stages.
The cost has finally come down and the RX 5000 series has also been launched. The RX 5700 XT can achieve 90% of the performance of Radeon VII, but the price is only half.
