AMD has rebadged their budget GPUs again, now called 600-series

[mongeese]

Cutting corners: This week, AMD silently began selling five "new" GPUs to OEMs under the Radeon 600 series. They’re just about the cheapest cards AMD sells, with a maximum core count of 640 for the top-end RX 640, trickling down to 320 for the 610, which, believe it or not, is based on the Graphics Core Next 1 architecture, released over five years ago.

I’m not sure whether to call it an addiction or a kink, but it’s safe to say AMD has a real rebadging problem. In June 2016 they released part of the 400-series based on 28nm, then they rebranded and rereleased them in April 2017 as 500-series hardware. The new 600-series is entirely comprised of 500-series hardware without a single spec change, but furthermore, half of the 600-series is a rebadge of a rebadge of the original 400-series.

In AMD’s defense, it’s likely pressure from OEMs who want to advertise that their products have newer generation hardware and AMD is simply complying. Marketing tactics aside, these cards aren’t much to get excited about. They’re not going to be released to the public as standalone products and we don’t really know how much they cost.

Regarding release date, they could appear in desktops and laptops from Asus, HP, Acer, and companions any day now. Here are the specs (some are available in multiple configurations).

	Radedon RX 640	Radeon 630	Radeon 625	Radeon 620	Radeon 610
Core Count	640/512	512	384	384/320	320
Boost Clock	1287 MHz	1219 MHz	1024 MHz	1024 MHz	1030 MHz
Memory	4GB 7Gbps GDDR5	4GB 6Gbps GDDR5	4 GB 4.5Gbps GDDR5	4GB 4.5Gbps GDDR5/GDDR3	4GB 4.5Gbps GDDR5
Market	Desktop + Laptop	Desktop + Laptop	Laptop	Laptop	Laptop
Architecture	Polaris (GCN 4)	Polaris (GCN 4)	Topaz (GCN 3)	Topaz (GCN 3)	Orland (GCN 1)
Previous Name	Radeon RX 550X	Radeon RX 540	Radeon 530	Radeon 530	Radeon 520
Previous Previous Name	-	-	Radeon R7 430	Radeon R7 430	Radeon R5 435

While it’s a touch irritating that AMD can re-release such old architectures and designs again, what’s probably worse is that the market allows for it. While AMD holds a minority market share in the low-end, TechSpot’s testing has demonstrated the viability of these old cut-price cards – hopefully, Navi makes its way to budget, or Nvidia or Intel do it with their architectures next year, providing a real increase in value.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/81495-amd-has-rebadged-their-budget-gpus-again-now.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Rebadging ain't gonna change the fact that the market knows you're #2.

Next time, come harder and be number 1

There's only so much lipstick you can put on a pig.

 

[MaXtor]

Why? Because it works. Unsuspecting buyers will just look at the model number and buy thinking it's newer and better. It's the same reason you can walk into a Best Buy and find a 5 year old card selling for the original retail price. Not everyone is a nerd like us Techspot readers.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Polaris/GCN 4 parts are still 2x the speed of Intel's best Iris Plus iGPU so those parts still have a purpose. The rest have no reason to exist.

 

[shakattack]

The author is either dumb or just purposely avoiding the truth. It's not a tactic it's just business, and it fills a requirement. Dream on if you expect Navi to be sold at these price-points. It's priced low because it uses 28nm and Polaris uses the older 14nm process that wasn't updated to 12nm. These old processes remain useful for non-performance parts especially embedded. If you want Navi low-end chips on a leading-edge 7nm process it ain't gonna ever happen.

 

[VitalyT]

When I was just about to praise AMD for the recent innovations, they're again off the horse and onto a donkey.

 

[EndRessentiment]

And (some) people say capitalism is great... Rather lame of AMD. But then again, they're a small company compared to Nvidia. I guess it's a lame move in order to tag along...

Rebadging ain't gonna change the fact that the market knows you're #2.

Next time, come harder and be number 1

Does this translate as: "Go Nvidia, go! Take my money, take my praise!" ?

 

[retsxel]

Every company makes mistakes, AMD is no exception. Vote with your wallet people.

 

[Evernessince]

The title of this article is click bait and the contents are not clear enough. Given the comments so far, people are being misled.

I'll clear this up right here: THIS IS AN OEM ONLY REBRAND. These are not consumer cards and they only consist of low end products. Look at the rebranded cards, all low end products that slot perfectly in those cheaper OEM systems you see. In addition, all models were moved a tier down in the stack. A 550X becomes a 640 as so on. This is in fact extremely common for the OEM market as GPU launches do not coincide with the OEM market, thus instead of releasing new cards for their OEM partners they launch rebrands for the OEM market.

examples of OEM rabrands

GeForce GTX 660 Ti -> GeForce GTX 760 Ti OEM
GeForce 510 OEM -> GeForce 605 OEM
GeForce GT 520 -> GeForce GT 610, GeForce GT 620 OEM, GeForce GT 705 OEM
GeForce GT 530 OEM -> GeForce GT 620
GeForce GT 440 -> GeForce GT 730 (DDR3), GeForce GT 630 (DDR3)
GeForce GT 545 -> GeForce GT 640 OEM Rebrand (GF116)
GeForce GTX 560 SE -> GeForce GT 645 OEM
GeForce GT 630 Rev. 2 -> GeForce GT 730 GDDR5
GeForce GTX 670 -> GeForce GTX 760 Ti OEM


Radeon HD 8570 OEM -> Radeon R5 240 OEM, Radeon R7 240 (OLAND)
Radeon HD 8670 OEM -> Radeon R7 240
Radeon R7 250 -> Radeon R7 350 OEM, Radeon R7 340 OEM
AMD Radeon R7 360 -> Radeon RX 455 OEM

 

[pinscher]

Why? Because it works. Unsuspecting buyers will just look at the model number and buy thinking it's newer and better. It's the same reason you can walk into a Best Buy and find a 5 year old card selling for the original retail price. Not everyone is a nerd like us Techspot readers.

There is no good reason or justification to sell dated tech as new.

 

[cliffordcooley]

There is an upside in buying newly manufactured old tech. And a rebrand lets you know that is exactly what you are getting.

 

[Lew Zealand]

There is no good reason or justification to sell dated tech as new.

Sure there is: money. The OEMs demand a new name and if AMD doesn't give them one, they won't buy. So AMD updates the name and the OEMs give them money for their rebadged product. It's just business.

 

[Uncle Al]

You can hear the supply manager yelling at the top of his lungs, "get me more lipstick for these pigs and hurry!"

 

[ShadowDeath]

Rebadging ain't gonna change the fact that the market knows you're #2.

Next time, come harder and be number 1

Number 1 does it all the time. This article is just scraping the bottom of the barrel for something to complain about. They rebadged old GPUs with the 640 being the top one... For AMD that's pretty low end. There's still 670, 680, and 690.....

 

[Evernessince]

Number 1 does it all the time. This article is just scraping the bottom of the barrel for something to complain about. They rebadged old GPUs with the 640 being the top one... For AMD that's pretty low end. There's still 670, 680, and 690.....

We don't even know if AMD will even fill out the rest of the 600 linup. Given that it's following the old Polaris naming scheme, that means AMD wants to differentiate it from their new Navi cards. My bet is AMD is going to roll out low and ultra low end cards for Navi when they are ready.

 

[grumblguts]

You cant just go and buy one of these.
they're for pre built systems so why worry.
The OEM tell AMD what they want and they just obey.
Its the OEM who want the name change AMD will only be selling to them.
If you want to blame anyone blame the OEM. That is how I see it.

 

[grumblguts]

AMD dont exist so nvidia users get their cards cheaper they exist to make money like every other company.
The only people I see complaining here are the nvidia users and you cant even buy one.
Who honestly cares. if you tell the truth to buyers they would avoid nvidia like the plague.

 

[Cornroll]

Rebadging ain't gonna change the fact that the market knows you're #2.

Next time, come harder and be number 1

Number 1? Number 1 at shafting their own customers who are as equally blind in supporting the green team.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Number 1? Number 1 at shafting their own customers

Hahaha you are funny. We have a better product with nVidia and you call it shafting.

 

[EndRessentiment]

Hahaha you are funny. We have a better product with nVidia and you call it shafting.

Completely non-sequitur. A product being the best doesn't say that much by itself, what matters is how much better it is than the competition. And, a company can be selling the best product and still be shafting customers, such as unreasonably restricting use (like Nvidia used to do with SLI) or blaming others for their own design mistakes (Bumpgate with 40% early life failure). There's many more examples.

[Edit: typo]

 

[Nobina]

I don't really expect AMD or even Nvidia to do something about this budget segment. I don't even understand why would anyone buy a PC with Radeon 610/620...It's barely more useful than an iGPU, you won't game on it.

 

[Cornroll]

Number 1? Number 1 at shafting their own customers

Hahaha you are funny. We have a better product with nVidia and you call it shafting.

Yes. You do have the objectively better product. But at what cost?

Look at what happened with GTX 970 3.5 +0.5GB.
Look at Titan XP early 2018 vs Late 2018 silent launch.
Look at g-sync.

You are the biggest fool for thinking that an rtx 2080ti is worth its current msrp.

But don't worry Nvidia loves you. Thank you for bending over and letting us in. With love, nvidia.

 

[Dimitrios]

I'm a long time AMD fan but if you're gonna change the model number atleast change one of the specs even increasing the clock speed by a puny 1MHZ or 10MHZ.

This is like removing the a car model and re-badging the car to a higher number while leaving everything 100% the same.

 

[Vulcanproject]

Disappointing. Gone are the days with AMD that when you got a new architecture you got a full range of cards top to bottom that benefited from it.

Nvidia have done plenty of rebranding in their time but AMD are certainly the ones that are much more keen on it.

Of course this is likely related to the fact Nvidia can usually afford to launch a full range and AMD typically can't. However the answer is just don't do it until you have a new product.

 

[cliffordcooley]

You are the biggest fool for thinking that an rtx 2080ti is worth its current msrp.

I draw a line at $300 for both CPU and GPU. It is the x60 I buy, not the more expensive x70/x80. But still yet they are better products. Whether you agree with the price or not. I will never buy AMD's furnaces. No matter how cheaply they are sold. I am happy though they finally got a grip on their CPUs. I'm guessing they will now work on lowering their GPU tempts.

Just to be clear I think anyone spending more than $300 on any computer part is a fool. But hey that is just my perspective. That doesn't mean the person that does spend over is being shafted. If they fell they are not then they are not. Our opinion doesn't matter as long as they get the product they wanted.

 

[RafnexGM]

Well if its the same price or lower... who wins?? the end user..

 

[amghwk]

**Yawn**