When developing a new video accelerator, Radeon engineers always define minimum hardware specifications, which are later called the reference design. That is, these are reference specifications that video card manufacturers will subsequently measure themselves against.

Subsequently, these specifications are transferred to partners who have every right to redo everything to zero, completely replace the cooling system, printed circuit board design, etc. And it negatively affects both the release time of the video card and its price, so some gamers prefer not to wait an extra month , and buy a new video card almost on the very first day of sales in the reference version.


Immediately after the release of the Radeon 7000 series video accelerators, AMD announced the launch of a limited series of Founders Edition video cards, which will cost a little more than usual. At first glance, it is not entirely clear how this differs from the reference sample and what the company’s interest is. As it turned out later, in the case of the Founders Edition, the manufacturer worked on the video accelerator itself, its cooling system, and external design.

Thus, the manufacturer launched a new series of “reference video cards” (note: according to the company), which other manufacturers will subsequently follow. All Founders Series GPUs are exactly the same as the Radeon designers' vision. As well as the recommended factory core and memory frequencies, which are exactly the same as those of the reference. The minimalistic design should appeal to those users who try to avoid popular gaming video cards with aggressive design and ubiquitous backlighting.