The Radeon R9 280X Review: Feat. Asus & XFX - Meet The Radeon 200 Series
by Ryan Smith on October 8, 2013 12:01 AM ESTCompany of Heroes 2
Our second benchmark in our benchmark suite is Relic Games’ Company of Heroes 2, the developer’s World War II Eastern Front themed RTS. For Company of Heroes 2 Relic was kind enough to put together a very strenuous built-in benchmark that was captured from one of the most demanding, snow-bound maps in the game, giving us a great look at CoH2’s performance at its worst. Consequently if a card can do well here then it should have no trouble throughout the rest of the game.
Like Metro this is the first time we’ve deployed this benchmark in a review. The results as it turns out are extremely good for AMD, with the reference clocked 280X surpassing the GTX 770 by over 16%. Given the price disparity between the cards simply tying the GTX 770 would be a good outcome, so surpassing it is even better. Of course this is basically a best case scenario, so not every game will see a lead like this.
On a side note, it’s mildly amusing to see that the 280X delivered 30fps on the dot. For an RTS game that’s a perfectly reasonable average framerate, so the 280X ends up being just fast enough to deliver the necessary performance for 2560 in this game.
Finally, on a lark we threw in the GTX 780 results, primarily to visualize the gap between the GTX 780 and its half-priced competition in preparation for the launch of the 290X. Never did we expect to see a 280X card top the GTX 780, but sure enough that’s what happens here, with the Asus factory overclocked 280X passing the GTX 780 by 0.1fps. This isn’t really a fair comparison due to the factory overclock, but it’s interesting none the less to see a Tahiti card keep up with GTX 780.
CoH2 also gives us a reliable look at minimum framerates, which like the average framerate over the whole benchmark appears to be entirely GPU bound. The 30fps average for the 280X at 2560 may be playable, but players sensitive to dips in the framerate will not appreciate these minimums. To get the minimum framerate about 30fps we have to go all the way down to 1080p at high quality.
Finally, while we didn’t have time to collect FCAT results for every card we were able to collect limited FCAT results for the most important cards. With our delta percentages method we’re looking for sub-3% frame time deltas for single-GPU cards, which is actually something that everyone has trouble with in CoH2. What the minimum frametimes hint at is that this game has a periodic frame time spike to It, that although it won’t be a problem for RTS gameplay, will similarly set off players sensitive to changes in frame times. This appears to be the work of the game and benchmark itself, as all of our cards struggle here in a similar manner.
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HisDivineOrder - Wednesday, October 9, 2013 - link
Well, they did it for the Geforce 7xx series, so they probably had to do it for the new Radeons. That said, it's nice for users to see how little things changed. You know, for the people who didn't pay attention.I agree though it's kinda boring that we're gonna be stuck on the same Radeon series for another 6 months or year. At least nVidia seems vaguely on track with Maxwell, though unless something changes dramatically I think AMD is going to be putting 0 pressure on nVidia to release Maxwell.
Mantle could put pressure if they manage to get it into the gaming engines like they want. If so, they could force nVidia to 1) release their own API (and pay to be put in the same engines) or 2) put out better and better hardware to stay in the high level API with better performance.
Or they could do option 3) and do both.
IUU - Thursday, October 17, 2013 - link
"These aren't new cards. They are basically the same GPU's AMD has been shipping for almost 2 years now and it looks like they are going to try and pass them off again for another year. Why was this treated as some big new thing with a long article and a bunch of benchmarks? This whole thing could have been done in a little 2 paragraph news blurb."Of course they are not new cards. I feel your frustration, but why would they be new?
They render crysis at 43 frames per second at a freaking 2560x1440 resolution, not to mention battlefield and other games. There is simply " no need" for new hardware because there are not p new games to justify stronger hardware. A stagnation in gaming industry would more appropriately describe the situation.
Not that there is nothing to add to improve visual quality of the games, they just won't do anything about it, at keast for now.
jasonelmore - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
disappointing to say the least. People were thinking this would perform at 780 levels are going to be dissapointed. i feel sorry for those that pre-ordered last week for $650+EzioAs - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
This is the 280X not the 290X....jasonelmore - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
ahh ok, i wouldnt have even bothered with this detailed of a review on rebadges with new firmware.EzioAs - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
We don't need you to bother anything when you don't even read the title much less the review itself.RyuDeshi - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Well seeing as you didn't even bother reading the first page I can see that.It's still worth reviewing so that when people are trying to compare current GPUs, they have updated benchmarks with newer firmware to support those purchase decisions. This goes for both the AMD and Nvidia cards. The worst part about looking up old reviews of say the 7970 (which this is a rebadge of) is that most of them are with older firmware, and AMD had a pretty nice boost a few months after their release which this review more accurately reflects.
jasonelmore - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
well i tried to edit my post literally 10 seconds after i posted but nope, looks like were still browsing 1999 websites that dont let you edit or delete your comments. anyways, yes i should have read the whole article to make any sort of comment at all. sorry.jasonelmore - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
btw the 1st page wasnt up yet, only the charts were posted when i read. this is the problem with posting reviews before they are done, and stuff.Morawka - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
yeah that was annoying