The Radeon R7 265 fits into AMD's line-up between the R7 260X and R9 270. The R7 265 uses a cut-down 'Curacao' GPU which we've seen used for the R9 270 and R9 270X. Curacao is a GCN 1.0 part, so it supports AMD's Mantle API, CrossFire technology and Eyefinity, however it doesn't support TrueAudio.
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Important to note, all the pricing information below comes from Newegg and excludes sales. If pricing in your country or region differs from the Newegg's pricing in the US, which it likely will, then please draw your own conclusions based on the...
Yet we have a hard time recommending the GTX 750 Ti over the R7 265 as the Radeon offers 13% more performance (on average) and over 20% in games such as Battlefield 4. AMD's solution consumed 32% more power than Nvidia's, though in the games we tested during that scenario the R7 265 was also 24% faster...
For the money, both cards offer decent bang for the buck, but the R7 265’s more powerful GPU and wider memory bus make it the more attractive option in our opinion. If you can muster the additional $30, it’s absolutely worth the investment, assuming the delta remains $30 by the time cards go on sale.
We'd recommend the R7-265 to the casual gamers with a monitor resolution of 1920x1080/1200 as absolute maximum. With the extremely modern games that are heavy on the GPU we do advise to look at something a hint stronger. For the casual gamer we can definitely recommend the product, and yeah... we are curious how the R7-265 will hold ground price/performance wise to the upcoming GeForce GTX 750 series from NVIDIA.
If AMD had the ability to release these cards NOW then I think this launch would have been considered pretty much flawless. As it stands, NVIDIA has a whole lot of time to plan and react with either new products of its own (or even just price adjustments).
AMD tells us that they expect the Radeon R7 265 to retail at around $150, which is a very competitive price for the card's performance. You should definitely consider the R7 265 if you are looking for the best bang per buck; I seriously doubt NVIDIA's upcoming cards can compete in that metric (history tells us so).
The Radeon R7 265's introduction, for now, puts AMD in a strong position in the £100-£120 category. Sapphire's implementation of the card is thoroughly decent, mating the GPU to a proven cooler that's both cool and quiet.
Our tests show that the Radeon R7 265 has the advantage over Nvidia's GeForce GTX 650 Ti boost in virtually all situations and performs roughly equal to Nvidia's GeForce GTX 660. Considering the fact that on average, GTX 660 cards cost € 170, it's safe to say that the Radeon R7 265 offers an excellent good price/performance ratio, assuming that the card will actually retail at about € 130 later this month.
Meanwhile, anyone that wants an efficient, HTPC or SFF focused GPU should look to the TrueAudio-equipped, very affordable R7 260X. The R7 265 is nonetheless very appealing for anyone who doesn't want to step up to the R9-series or finds the other R7 offerings underpowered so it should do well provided we actually see it hit $149.