AMD Radeon 370X Built on Full Pitcairn GPU

Details have emerged about AMD’s upcoming 370X graphics card. This budget-friendly GPU is designed to compete with NVIDIA’s GTX 950 which should arrive in retail stores within the next 2 weeks. According to GPU-Z stills from Expreview, the card will feature 1280 Stream cores and 2GB GDDR5 on a 256-bit interface.

This specification shows the GPU is utilizing AMD’s full Pitcairn graphical processor, which first came on the scene in 2012. Annoyingly, the Subvendor information is obscured, but I would expect the GPU clock to be virtually identical to AMD’s last generation, 270X. Expreview suggests AMD have simply created a BIOS revision and this new card shares the same Device ID as the 270X. This corresponds with AMD’s rebrand plans on lower-tier GPUs.

There is a strange anomaly from the screenshots which I find hard to comprehend. You might notice, the graphics card contains the R9 branding which is usually reserved for higher-end GPUs. Perhaps, the Fury range has made AMD alter their naming scheme and allow for budget cards in the R9 series. Whatever the case, it will be interesting to see how AMD’s 370X compares to the GTX 950. While the performance numbers of the GTX 950 are still unknown, it doesn’t take a lot of time to work out the 370x’s gaming performance.

Do you think NVIDIA will begin offering better performing GPUs on a strict budget, or will AMD continue to be the value-orientated proposition?