MSI R7 260x Review

[section_title title=Conclusion]Conclusion

Now it’s time for my final thoughts on MSI’s latest AMD mid-range card which maybe asks more questions than it actually answers.  With the graphics card market already littered with options such as 270 and 270x, is the 260x a viable option for a card on the cusp of the sub £100 price bracket?

Well starting with the most important part of the entire review (the performance); I can’t say I was blown away with the MSI R7 260x, but please let me explain why.  The card itself is a refreshed AMD 7790 and my general opinion on AMD/NVIDIA constantly refreshing models to make money is something I strongly disagree with, but with that being said the 260x comes in at a really interesting price point as in games, the 260x overclocked was trading blows with the 270x we had previously tested which is nothing short of brilliant.  Combine that with the 2GB of available VRAM and what you have a very capable budget gaming card at 1080p; even though 1440p is supported through DVI, I wouldn’t recommend this card for 1440p gaming.  Performance in synthetic benchmarks were probably the least convincing I have seen so far from a graphics card this year and although it comfortably beats the ASUS R7 250, it struggles to catch up with the R7 270x; gaming is the main test and it performed very well in my opinion.

Overclocking performance was slightly disappointing too although anything extra gained is a bonus as overclocks are never a guaranteed thing.  The card did overclock well but the performance wasn’t that much of an increase to be honest and I feel for a card of this size and one with an extraordinary low TDP, it would be more suited to a low end gaming machine.  As mentioned earlier, the best scenario for this card would be a 1080p monitor with one of the latest titles at medium settings; if you want playable frame rates that is.

The aesthetics and design of the card are pretty good and with an overall length of 8 inches, this particular card should fit in 99% of systems; whether that is full ATX or even M-ITX.  I for one would have loved for this card to have followed the GAMING series design as I feel MSI have the dragon army design to the T and feel it’s one of the best tech liveries currently out there.  That being said, I can understand why this card doesn’t feature in the GAMING series and based on the overall performance, it isn’t really what I would consider to be a good gaming card; it does play them adequately well though in retrospective!

Price wise the MSI R7 260x can be picked up for as little as £100 and if you have a strict budget for a low end gaming rig then this card is going to be very hard to beat.  I think the icing on the cake for me though is for an extra £30 more you can purchase the beefier MSI R9 270 Gaming Edition card which not only out performs it, but packs an extra 384 shaders, a better 256bit memory bus and is based on Pitcairn and not the 260x which is based on the Bonaire processor.  It would obviously be hard not to recommend the 270 over the 260x but given the actual price point, the 260x actually does the trick and offers a very nice alternative over NVIDIA counterparts such as the more expensive GTX 650ti etc.

Overall the MSI R7 260x might lack graphical grunt but for under £100 what would you expect?  A Titan?  For those on a budget and looking to make a worthwhile purchase for their low-mid end system, the MSI R7 260x is a hard one to ignore but add Direct X 11.2 support into the mix and you have a pretty epic little card!

Based on the above I am happy to award the MSI R7 260x the silver award for delivering medium performance at a very desirable price.

Many thanks to MSI for supplying the 260x for review today and I look forward to seeing more from MSI and AMD in the future.