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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Pantsu - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Can't say for these cards, but at the very least if you're using multi monitor setup, you can forget about zero core. Actually I've never managed to get my 7970 to go zero core in any circumstance.Pantsu - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Rebadge may be a bit of a harsh word, but ultimately these cards bring very little change over what was offered before. The only significant changes are the price and the I/O setup, unless you care about the cooler shroud in the cheapo skus. I'd say now is the time to go bargain hunting for 7000 series cards while supplies last. You get a nice game bundle and practically the same cards for less. I've already had my eye on a 249€ 7970 for CF purposes, but I'm still hesitant since AMD hasn't released the new frame pacing driver for eyefinity.Now what I'd really like to know is if these 200 series "definetely not a rebadge" cards will work in crossfire with the 7000 series "cousins".
Pantsu - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Oh they in fact do move in herds...err work in Crossfire.Impulses - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
I had been thinking about going with two GTX 760 in SLI for a budget 5760x1200 setup... It might not handle every game maxed but it's still faster than my cutter 6970x2 setup (and for a similar amount of money as what I paid for it a few years ago)... The 280X is tempting at only $100 more for two cards tho. I can afford two GTX 780 if I really wanted, I'm just nor sure I can justify spending that kinda money on GPU... And two 770 just didn't seem like a large enough jump for an extra $300 over a $500 setup (760x2). Decisions, decisions...Impulses - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Heh, started writing that reply and forgot about the main reason I did, AMD's slow progress with frame pacing for EF is the one thing holding me back. Guess I'll hold out for some moreDdriver releases an possibly the BF Mantle patch.AWilco - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Is there an explanation of the poor performance of the ASUS card at 1080p + 4x MSAA in BF3? Looks to be an aberration comparing it to most other graphs (haven't done an exhaustive look).Ryan Smith - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
That would be your fat fingered editor making a typo. Fixed.blanarahul - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
I just read that you guys had only 24 hours to test these GPUs. Is that true?Ryan Smith - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Oh goodness no. We had much longer than that. But a week goes by very quickly when you need to generate your results from scratch and write a 20K word article.Samunosuke - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
The 290 and 290X are going to be really intriguing especially on a price/performance scale. The price will be the determining factor for the 290X, undercut GTX 780 and you have a winner.