AMD R7 250

[Drown Babies]

I'm wondering if anyone has been able to find more details about the R7 250. As far as I can tell it lacks a PCI-E power plug, so its max power draw will be under 75W. So it sounds like this is a replacement for the HD7750.

I've heard that it might be based on an Oland chip from the 8000 OEM series, though it might be based on one of the other designs. It doesn't have the new audio technology, so it's probably not a new design.

The reason why this GPU is potentially interesting is that the HD7750 is the best option for a low-profile, single-slot, short (<20cm), and under 75W video card. Any performance improvement in this area would be great for those of us with very small cases.

I'm using the case from loneindustries, which actually has a little bit more space for a card slightly longer than the 7750. And there are a few other cases out there that could benefit from this.

I'm hoping, given the increased attention to cheap, small PCs from Valve's Steambox announcement, that we might see some increased competition in this space. Of course we won't really know about the effects of that until we hear about some non-BS Steambox configurations.

 

[Lorien]

That case is sexy, is it standard home theater component size? We should be seeing a lot more info leaks on the new cards closer to the NDA lift date (October 15th).

 

[Drown Babies]

Well this card is looking to be a bit of a disappointment. It seems to have about the same compute performance and memory bandwidth of the 7750 (which probably shouldn't be too surprising).

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/10/08/amd_radeon_r9_r7_series_rebranding_introduction/3#.UlQooGSDQXw

The max TDP is a little higher at 65W instead of the 7750's ~55W, but given how vague these values are it's tough to say if that actually means anything.

I guess it's back to waiting for the next generation, which I predict will be about Q2 2015...