The AMD Radeon R9 270X & R9 270 Review: Feat. Asus & HIS
by Ryan Smith on November 13, 2013 12:01 AM ESTBioshock Infinite
Bioshock Infinite is Irrational Games’ latest entry in the Bioshock franchise. Though it’s based on Unreal Engine 3 – making it our obligatory UE3 game – Irrational had added a number of effects that make the game rather GPU-intensive on its highest settings. As an added bonus it includes a built-in benchmark composed of several scenes, a rarity for UE3 engine games, so we can easily get a good representation of what Bioshock’s performance is like.
Bioshock tends to be a close matchup between similar AMD and NVIDIA cards, and this review is no exception. The 270X holds a small but distinct lead over the GTX 660, but the 270 vanilla trails the GeForce card by roughly the same amount. With the 270 and GTX 660 priced equivalently, this is essentially a slight loss for the 270.
On a side note, taking a moment to stop and look at the 270 in the frame of reference as a 150W card, we can see just how much AMD has improved their performance within the 150W envelope. Compared to their outgoing 7850, their last 150W card, the 270 is 20% faster. As we’ll see in a bit, real world power usage will be higher – there isn’t a free lunch on the same node – but for systems constrained by a 150W limit this is a clear improvement over previous options.
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Ryan Smith - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
Non-reference. There isn't a reference 280X, so we're using an XFX card as a proxy.garadante - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
Ah, alright. And I also noticed that there's no overclocking section on this review, which is one of the most important aspects of any GPU review for me personally. Is there a specific reason for that?Erenhardt - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
AMD cards cant be overclocked within "out of the box" policy. Contrary to nvidia cards, which overclocks nicely giving free performance for every CUDA user.garadante - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
I don't know what you're smoking Erenhardt, because AMD cards overclock quite nicely. In fact, overclocking AMD cards is currently much more user open because they can be overvolted, whereas Nvidia has locked down on user overvolting. And I have no clue what "out of the box" policy you're trying to mention. Overclocking an AMD card won't void the warranty unless there's damage to the card itself. Please don't try to troll.ddriver - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
Too bad most nvidia gpus suck in compute...Ryan Smith - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
Solely a matter of timing. I have the data, but this launch happened opposite APU13. So it had to be written very quickly.The 270X topped out at 1150MHz Base (1200MHz boost) and 6.5GHz memory. The HIS 270 topped out at 1075MHz base (1100MHz boost) and 6GHz memory. The Asus topped out at 1125MHz (1150MHz boost) and 6GHz memory.
garadante - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
Ah, alright. Thanks Ryan! So unless it's a fluke, the 270X might be slightly better binned than the 270. Are the default BIOS still not allowing for overvolting like most of the 290 series? Or because these are refreshes, is overvolting already possible with current tools without updates?blanarahul - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
How can the GTX 760 beat the R9 280X in Hitman: Absolution?!The Von Matrices - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
It was said in previous articles (but it should be included in all articles that have the 280X in the chart) that there is no reference 280X card or heat sink so the results they are using are from an XFX card with custom PCB and cooling (but stock clock speeds).laskdfjoiewjfalsd - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
For the love of God post the Nexus 5 review already. I come here everyday and see random stuff like this while a flagship is being put off to the side!