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RX560-Image

When AMD launched the RX 560 GPU, every bit an upgrade to the older RX 460, it upgraded the specs of the carte slightly. Unlike the RX 580 and RX 570, which retained their GPU cores, texture units, and ROP configurations and merely targeted significantly higher clock speeds, the RX 560 actually changed the core configuration from 896:56:16 (RX 460) to 1024:64:16. Now, AMD has plainly changed its RX 560 configuration without giving any sign they actually did so. The RX 560 is now selling in an 896-core configuration; we're assuming it's the same 896:56:16 configuration as the RX 460.

To be perfectly clear: We don't corroborate of or condone this practice. It's not unusual for GPUs to be sold in different memory configurations, but some companies, like VisionTek, don't fifty-fifty list the core count on their RX 560s on their own product pages. A sufficiently high base of operations clock and turbo heave could compensate for the loss of the texture mapping units and GPU cores, but that doesn't seem to be what's happened hither.

It would be i affair if these GPUs were confined to the bottom of the market, or restricted to 2GB configurations, but they aren't. Browsing Newegg shows plenty of Radeon RX 560s for auction in both 896 and one,024-core configurations, including an Asus RX 560 with 896 cores for a whopping $140. (In that location's an Asus RX 560 that shows on Newegg'due south product page every bit costing $166, but when you click through it's priced at $129).

With the above in listen, we also have to admit this is far from the outset time that AMD or Nvidia take sold multiple GPUs under a single SKU, with one office being much faster than the other. Several years ago, it was common to encounter low-stop GPUs equipped with a GDDR5 and a DDR3 pick, with the GDDR5 menu near invariably performing amend. Nvidia's GT 630 came in a 96:16:4 configuration and a 384:16:8 configuration. Both companies take, at various times, launched OEM or even standard editions of GPUs with varying core counts. And that's not even considering that in some cases, the relative departure between two GPUs with a similar model number is vastly different. The Radeon HD 7790 was far, far faster than the Radeon 7770 than a unproblematic 20-point deviation in their model numbers would account for. Data below courtesy of Anandtech's Demote comparing tool, at that place are additional results at this link that aren't shown in the graph below. The 7770 is in blue, the 7790 is in carmine.

7770-vs-7790

The moral of the story here is both AMD and Nvidia take played this kind of card before. It'due south not clear why AMD did so; the RX 560 has been in-market place for months, information technology'south widely available in both configurations, and the yields AMD gets on the menu should be mature, since information technology's based on the RX 460 and didn't pick up plenty clock speed to crave a serious binning difference.

The situation in this instance is as well worse because the GTX 1050 and the RX 560 are cervix and neck with each other over an entire suite of games. TechSpot did a thirty-game roundup and found the GTX 1050 had just a 1fps advantage over the 1024-core version of AMD'south scrap — only check out the spread between them depending on the title.

30game

If y'all pull 128 cores off the RX 560, chances are that tilts things a bit more towards the GTX 1050, and some of the RX 560s are priced then high, they're competing against the 1050 Ti (which wins that comparison decisively). Given these circumstances, we really tin can't recommend anyone buy the neutered version of the RX 560. Nvidia competes finer in this cost bracket.

And while we're sure no one's going to listen, information technology's high time GPU manufacturers stopped pulling this crap. Call it the RX 558 if you take to. Call it the RX 560 896-Core Edition. Phone call it the RX 560 14CU. But while the performance gap betwixt the 896 and ane,024 core-versions isn't huge, all the initial results on Google were done with the one,024-core variant. Silently adding a 2d option might be pretty common in the grand scheme of things, but information technology'due south not consumer-friendly.