If you want to buy a cheaper graphics card under the $100 price range, you might want to have a look at the AMD Radeon R7 265. This is a pretty old graphics card from AMD that you can find in selected stores. In addition, you can find this on eBay as well.
In this review, I have made some benchmarking tests and also compiled some authentic customer reviews of this graphics card. In the end, I provided my own verdict on whether you should buy this graphics card in 2023 or not.
AMD Radeon R7 265 Specifications
The primary components and specifications of the AMD Radeon R7 265 are:
| Release Date | 13th February 2014 |
| Codename | Curacao/Pitcairn |
| Architecture | GCN |
| CUDA Cores | 1024 |
| Base Clock Speed | 900 MHz |
| Boosted Clock Speed (Overclocked) | 925 MHz |
| Memory Clock Speed | 1400 MHz |
| Memory Bus | 256 Bit |
| Memory Type | GDDR5 |
| Maximum Memory | 2 GB |
| Memory Bandwidth | 179.2 GB/s |
| Technology | 28 nm |
| Transistor Count | 2800 Million |
| ROPs | 32 |
| DirectX Version | 12 |
| Shader | 5.0 |
| OpenGL | 4.3 |
| OpenCL | 1.2 |
| Interface | PCI Express x 16 3.0 |
| Power Consumption (TDP) | 150 W |
| Recommended PSU | 500 W |
| Maximum Supported Displays | 6 (with DP MST Hub) |
| Multi-GPU Support | Yes (CrossFire X) |
AMD Radeon R7 265 Benchmarks
When it comes to conducting GPU-only benchmarks, I was only able to conduct tests using 3DMark FireStrike Graphics benchmarking tool.
In this tool, a video gets displayed on the screen, which tests the graphical prowess of this graphics card. Here, a video depicting a lava monster and a humanoid creature fighting each other is shown. It’s displayed in 1080p resolution (1920 x 1080). This is a good benchmarking test since the video has some realistic animations that are pretty hefty on graphics cards.
Here, the AMD Radeon R7 265 Crossfire has scored 5220 points, which is a bit below average.
AMD Radeon R7 265 Reviews
It’s pretty rare to find this old graphics card in the market. Therefore, here are some old reviews of this graphics card from 2014/2015. All of these are quoted from the product store page of the AMD Radeon R7 265 on Amazon.
Here is a 4-star positive review
“For a budget gaming graphics card, AMD hit the nail on the head. 2GB of DDR5 video memory and enough processing cores to run most games at 1080p with fairly high settings. I almost want to pick another one up just to see how well these cards work in CFX. I have yet to experience any overheating problems thanks to Sapphire's cooling system. You won't be able to run Crysis 3 on max settings, obviously, but this is most certainly a GPU anyone who is building their own budget-minded gaming PC should seriously consider.” By - Amanda Corse
Here;’s a 5-star positive review
“Great card couldn't recommend it enough; this card performs absolutely beautifully, I bought this obviously to upgrade from my old card, for a small idea of what this card can do, before with my old card I could barely run battlefield 3 and 4 on medium, now I can play on ultra graphics settings ARMA 2, and ARMA 3 usually hover around 40 fps when played on high, also Skyrim on ultra with some graphical improvement mods gets a constant 60 fps on ultra, it usually runs pretty coolly, but at times it can get hot, but not often, I would definitely recommend this card for anyone having second guesses, it is great and reliable for its price, I've had it for a year now and have had 0 complaints about it. Also, I feel it is worth mentioning I am currently running 2 monitors off this card, and there is no drop in performance while gaming.” By - Ryan
However, not all reviews have been positive, like the two reviews above. Here;’s a 1-star negative review :
“This has a pretty bad matrix decoder. There are probably better, equally priced-video cards. Flash videos will green screen for little discernable, preventable reason, seemingly at random. Multiple videos seem to be a consistent trigger, which would be fine if the solution was to close those videos and only watch the one you're capable of watching, but the card won't "forgive" you, and once the green screen is triggered, it seems to persist until you restart, and might persist even then because it has. Triggers can be random too.” By - Austin
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions):-
Gamers have asked various questions regarding the AMD Radeon R7 265. My answers to their questions are
Ans: The AMD Radeon will support all previous generation (PS4/Xbox One) games at low to medium settings, around 60 fps. However, newer games will struggle to reach the 30 fps mark even at such settings. Therefore, I don’t think this graphics card will be good for modern gaming standards in 2023.
Ans: Yes, the AMD Radeon R7 265 graphics card is good enough for video editing and 2D/3D animations. However, it will definitely face lags and slowdowns the more pressure that’s being put on it.
Ans: You can download AMD Radeon R7 265 Drivers from the official AMD website. Simply search for it on Google, and you will find the webpage.
Final Verdict: Is The AMD Radeon R7 265 Worth It In 2023?
In my opinion, the AMD Radeon R7 265 graphics card is not worth it in 2023. It has pretty outdated drivers and will struggle to perform well if you play modern AAA video games. However, if you plan to assemble a cheap desktop computer to do office work, you can buy this. It will provide enough power to run Adobe programs. However, I will still recommend buying laptops or spending more for better desktop PCs.
| Pros | Cons |
| ➼ Pretty cheap (if you can find one) ➼ Good potential for overclocking ➼ Runs well at lower temperatures ➼ Full-size support for HDMI and DisplayPorts | ➼ Can become quite noisy while gaming ➼ Low limits regarding CCC Overdrive ➼ No support for AMD True Audio ➼ Outdated in 2023 |
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