AMD Radeon R7 265 revealed with 25% performance boost over R7 260x

AMD has revealed its latest dedicated graphics card, the Radeon R7 265, in an effort to plug a gap in its current line-up of GPUs around the £130 mark.

Designed to slot in directly beneath the Radeon R9 270 but above the R7 260x, the new R7 265 should provide a welcome speed boost over the cheaper cards in AMD’s line-up, with the company predicting a 25% increase in frame rates over the R7 260x.

Essentially a rebadged R9 270 with some of its stream processors and texture units disabled, the R7 265 is based on existing 28nm Pitcairn architecture rather than entirely new silicon. The “new” card has a core clock running at 900MHz which can boost up to 925MHz when thermal limits allow. 2GB of GDDR5 RAM on a 265-bit memory bus runs at an effective 5.6GHz, which should help when it comes to high resolution textures in games such as Battlefield 4.

Importantly, the new card will support AMD’s Mantle graphics API, which bypass several layers of programming code to relieve some of the strain from a CPU and provide better access to the GPU, improving frame rates in compatible games. Battlefield 4 is one of the first titles to take advantage of Mantle, with frame rates showing considerable improvement depending on the combination of CPU and GPU.

According to AMD, the R7 265 will be available later this month with prices starting at $149 or 109 EUR (roughly £90 + VAT). AIB board partners, including Sapphire, PowerColour, XFX, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and HIS will all be producing their own variants, so expect custom coolers and out-of-box overclocks when the card arrives.