AMD quietly downgraded some Radeon RX 560 graphics cards
By Paul Lilly 2017-12-05T19:21:04.338Z
Pay attention to the specs.
Customers who buy a Radeon RX 560 graphics card may get a bit less than they bargained for. That's because some cards are now shipping with fewer compute units and stream processors than originally advertised when AMD launched the Radeon RX 560 in April.
When the Radeon RX 560 first came out, AMD listed the card as having 16 compute units and 1,024 stream processors. Then several months later, AMD launched a cut down Radeon RX 560D SKU in Asia with 14 compute units and 896 stream processors. It was easy to spot the difference because of the slightly different model names, but now some regular Radeon RX 560 cards are shipping with downgraded specs.
Heise.de was first to spot the change, noting that several Radeon RX 560 cards in the marketplace are now shipping with only 896 stream processors. It's not clear when exactly that started happening.
At some point in time, AMD also updated its Radeon RX 560 product page to reflect that there are two models, one with 896 stream processors and one with 1,024 stream processors. By booking a trip on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, PCWorld notes the last snapshot took place on July 7, at which time AMD was still advertising 1,024 stream processors on all Radeon RX 560 cards.
Both the Radeon RX 560 and 560D are lower end solutions for 1080p gaming. The regular version generally generally matches Nvidia's GeForce 1050 in games, and falls short of the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti.
The takeaway here is that If you are in the market for a Radeon RX 560, pay close attention to the specs. For example, this PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 560 card on Newegg has 896 stream processors, whereas this model has 1,024 stream processors. In some cases, you will have to do more digging—this VisionTek Radeon RX 560 listing doesn't specify how many stream processors it's packing.
Paying close attention to the specs is good practice regardless, though usually you don't have to worry about receiving a quietly downgraded card. In this case, you do.