Total War: Attila

The second strategy game in our benchmark suite, Total War: Attila is the latest game in the Total War franchise. Total War games have traditionally been a mix of CPU and GPU bottlenecks, so it takes a good system on both ends of the equation to do well here. In this case the game comes with a built-in benchmark that plays out over a large area with a fortress in the middle, making it a good GPU stress test.

Total War: Attila - 2560x1440 - Max Quality + Perf Shadows

Total War: Attila - 1920x1080 - Max Quality + Perf Shadows

Total War; Attila is another game that puts some memory pressure on 2GB cards and drives a larger gap between the R9 380/GTX 960 and the R9 380X. As a result nothing less than the R9 380X is able to average 30fps or better at 1080p, with the R9 380X 15% ahead of the GTX 960 in the process.

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  • Asomething - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link

    The HSA foundation is partially founded by ARM which means they are already working on it (but as you said there isnt much motivation to make HSA enabled apps). AMD is the only high profile and headline grabbing member of it so they tend to get the most press because of clickbait articles. And a lot (if not all) of nvidia's efficiency improvements do come from the lower transistor density (also the main reason they can say their TDP is so low since the chip has a larger surface area with which to dissipate the same amount of heat as the same chip made using AMD's high density libraries would have), improvements to the memory and reductions in DP capabilities.
  • tamalero - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link

    anyone can explain me why everyone says the new gpus are overpriced?
    their pricepoints seems to be similar to the performance of the nvidia cards.

    the table on the first page shows clearly.
    Even the review shows the 970 and the AMD 390 trading blows and have the same price point.

    so, what did I miss? why suddenly fanboys demand even 15% reduction to "become competitive" ?
  • FriendlyUser - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link

    As everyone has noted, the cards are uncomfortably close to the higher tier (390 and 970). So, the 380X is not overpriced with respect to the competition from nvidia, but with respect to the 390. The jump in performance is so great, that we should either hope the 390 goes at $300 (practically eliminating the 380X) or the 380X completely dominates the sub-200 territory.

    Anyway, overall it's a very good product.
  • just4U - Friday, November 27, 2015 - link

    Well.. here in Canada that's not quite the case. A 380/960 /w 4G mem sells for 300ish.. the 380X $330.

    A 970 runs you $450-500 and a 390 $430+ No way their priced similar to the 970/390.
  • BurntMyBacon - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link

    @Samus: "They need to drop the prices across the entire line about 15% just to become competitive."

    That wouldn't fix the biggest pricing problem shown in this review. The 380X is priced too closely to the 390 given the performance difference. Drop them both by 15% and the 380X is still priced too closely to the 390. I'll leave the rest of you to argue performance vs premium cooler value on the high end and 390/390X vs GTX970/GTX980 performance per dollar, but I submit that a flat 15% drop is too simple an answer to the problem due to competition within their own lineup.
  • Azix - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link

    but people were fine with the 960 at the same price...
  • zeeBomb - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link

    Ryan smith blessed us with a great graphics card review.
  • maecenas - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link

    At this point, NVIDIA or AMD, I'm not sure I would get anything other than an ASUS cooling system. I have the STRIX version of the GTX 970 and it really is fantastic.
  • jasonelmore - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link

    It Depends on what you need. The Stock Blower Coolers keep hot air out of the case, so for Small Form Factor Builds, your not going to want Asus's coolers since they dump the hot air back into the case.
  • theduckofdeath - Tuesday, December 1, 2015 - link

    I have a mATX case with water cooling and internal padding all around to keep the noise down, and my ASUS Strix GTX 960 is not making a sound and the temp in the case does not go above 50-52 degrees celsius even after hours of playing. The problem with GPUs sucking air out from the rear and blowing the same air out is, they have to generate all of the airflow themselves, which always gets really noisy compared to using the air passing through a case.

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