AMD quietly downgrades some Radeon RX 560s

AMD recently took a barrage of criticism for quietly changing the specifications on its Radeon RX 560 graphics card. The company now offers two different versions of the card under the same name, one with 14CUs and 896 stream processors, and another with 16CUs and 1,024 stream processors.

The latter is the original specification, and the lack of an announcement made it seem like AMD was trying to sneak in the change without notifying consumers that they could be getting a weaker product.

More tech-savvy consumers will also notice that the older Radeon RX 460 cards pack the same 14CUs, so AMD almost seems like it's regressing to the previous generation. To make matters worse, the pared-down models weren't even cheaper.

Furthermore, the company initially seemed like it was avoiding responsibility for the matter, stating that the onus was on its add-in board partners to disclose the change in individual Radeon RX 560 cards.

“It’s correct that 14 Compute Unit (896 stream processors) and 16 Compute Unit (1024 stream processor) versions of the Radeon RX 560 are available. We introduced the 14CU version this summer to provide AIBs and the market with more RX 500 series options. It’s come to our attention that on certain AIB and e-tail websites there’s no clear delineation between the two variants. We’re taking immediate steps to remedy this: we’re working with all AIB and channel partners to make sure the product descriptions and names clarify the CU count, so that gamers and consumers know exactly what they’re buying. We apologize for the confusion this may have caused.”

However, what’s interesting is that AMD supposedly made the change over the summer, so it seems like the card has been on the market for a while now. As a result, it seems possible that certain customers may have purchased a 14CU version of the card without realizing it.

You can check which version of the card you bought using a program like GPU-Z, but if there was in fact a mistake, it doesn’t seem like there’s any way of taking it up with AMD at the moment.

In the meantime, it’s best to pay attention to the technical specifications if you’re shopping for the Radeon RX 560.

Source: PC World 

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