In october 2013 the brand new AMD Radeon R7 and R9 series were launched. We have just arrived in 2014 and the new product range is almost complete. The mainstream R7 series currently consists of the R7 240, 250 and 260X. Today we add the R7 260 to the range and this proves to be a very important model. Why?

In the past years AMD worked closely together with the gaming industry. This resulted in AMD's Gaming Evolved program which represents the commitment to PC gamers, PC game developers and the PC gaming industry in general to deliver innovative technologies and to help the gaming industry create the best possible gaming experience on the world's best gaming platform, the PC.

As of today MSI's new R7 260 1GD5 OC is available for everyone desiring an entry into the world of 4K resolution gaming and next-level of integrated audio. Equipped with a large 10cm fan this little powerhouse will remain cool while allowing anywhere from 1 to 6 displays to be connected to the card. This offers excellent flexibility for anyone looking for more versatility whether it's extra horsepower for graphics or to allow higher resolutions to be connected to their PC. Furthermore, like the high end R9 290 and R9 290X, the R7 260 is also equipped with AMD TrueAudio which reduces CPU loads up to 14% compared to rendering sound with the on-board audio chip.

AMD launched the Radeon R7 260 graphics cards, positioned in between the $139 Radeon R7 260X, and the $89 Radeon R7 250, which makes for a fairly big gap. It is expected to be priced no more than $110. Based on the same 28 nm "Bonaire" silicon as the R7 260X and the HD 7790 from the previous generation, the R7 260 is a mildly de-tuned variant of the R7 260X.

The Radeon R7 260 features just 768 of the 896 stream processors physically present on the "Bonaire" silicon. The GPU is clocked at 1000 MHz, compared to the 1100 MHz of the R7 260X; and the memory is clocked at 6.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective), compared to the 6.50 GHz of its sibling, which churns out a memory bandwidth of 96 GB/s on the chip's 128-bit wide memory bus. 1 GB, and not 2 GB is the standard memory amount. The maximum power draw is reduced to 95-Watt from 115-Watt on the R7 260X, and the card makes do with a single 6-pin PCIe power connector to draw power from. API support is consistent - DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.3, and Mantle. AMD TrueAudio appears to be supported.