It seems that a large part of the line will in fact be made up of rebranded versions of older cards, according to a report from Tech Spot. The Tobago GPU of the R9 360 has been linked to the Bonaire GPU that was used in cards like the R7 260 and the HD 7790, while other models seem to be re-using Oland GPUs.
The worst offender would seem to be the R9 370, which has been traced back all the way to 2012’s Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition. For a line that’s been so highly anticipated, this sort of rampant re-branding will be something of a disappointment for consumers waiting to re-spec their rig with a new AMD card.
It also raises questions of just how much the Radeon 300 series can do as a response to AMD’s rival NVIDIA after their recent flub of the GTX 970. This was meant to be AMD’s opportunity to gain some ground on their competitor, but a line filled with re-brands wouldn’t seem to be enough to make any real impact.
However, hopes still remain high for the 380X and the 390X. We still haven’t heard all too much official word on what to expect from these cards — but they’ll have to make some kind of a statement for the line to avoid irrelevancy.
