The Radeon R9 280X Review: Feat. Asus & XFX - Meet The Radeon 200 Series
by Ryan Smith on October 8, 2013 12:01 AM ESTThe Drivers, The Test & Our New Testbed
With the product introductions and specifications out of the way, let’s dive into the test.
The launch drivers for the 200 series sampled to the press are Catalyst 13.11 Beta 1, with a version number of 13.200.16, making them a newer build on the same branch as the current 13.10 Beta 2 drivers. As such there are no known functional differences between the current drivers for the 7000 series and the launch drivers for the 200 series. With that said we did encounter one specific bug in these drivers, which resulted in flickering lighting in Crysis 3 on high quality settings.
Note that this also means that these drivers also only contain Phase 1 of AMD’s Crossfire frame pacing fixes. This means frame pacing for Crossfire for single monitor displays is fully implemented, however frame pacing for multi monitor displays and 4K displays is not. Based on AMD’s most recent comments a fix is not expected until November, and while we don’t seriously see owners settling down to run Eyefinity or 4K displays off of 280X in CF – at least not until 290X arrives for evaluation – it’s unfortunate AMD wasn’t able to get this problem fixed in time for the 200 series launch.
| Catalyst 13.11B1 Frame Pacing | |||||
| Single Display | Eyefinity / 4K Tiled | ||||
| D3D11 | Y | N | |||
| D3D10 | Y | N | |||
| D3D9 | N | N | |||
| OpenGL | N | N | |||
Moving on, this article will mark the debut of our new testbed and benchmark suite. Both were due for a refresh so we’re doing so in conjunction with the launch of the 200 series.
For our testbed we have done a complete overhaul, the first one in 4 years. The trusty Thermaltake Spedo case that has been the skeleton of our testbed has been replaced with an NZXT Phantom 630. Similarly we’ve gone and replaced all of the internal components too; an IVB-E based 4960X operating at 4.2GHz for 40 lanes of validated PCIe 3.0 functionality, an ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional motherboard to operate our cards on, and 32GB of G.Skill’s lowest latency (CAS 9) DDR3-1866 RAM. Meanwhile storage is being backed by a Samsung 840 EVO 750GB, and power via a Corsair AX1200i PSU. Finally cooling is handled by a Corsair H110 closed loop cooler, and meanwhile the Phantom 630 leaves an open fan mount for us to tinker with closed loop GPU coolers (such as the Asus ARES II) in the future.
As for the new benchmark suite, we’ve gone through and appropriately updated our games list. New to the GPU 14 test suite are Company of Heroes 2, Total War: Rome 2, GRID 2, and Metro: Last Light (ed: Metro 2). With the holiday games season upon us, we expect to add at least one more game, along with swapping out Battlefield 3 for Battlefield 4 shortly after that is released.
Finally, though we won’t make use of its 4K capabilities in this review given the limited performance of R9 280X, Asus sent over one of their new PQ321 monitors for our testing needs. While still very much bleeding edge, we’ll be taking a look at 4K performance in the near future as appropriate cards arrive.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-4960X @ 4.2GHz |
| Motherboard: | ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional |
| Power Supply: | Corsair AX1200i |
| Hard Disk: | Samsung SSD 840 EVO (750GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill RipjawZ DDR3-1866 4 x 8GB (9-10-9-26) |
| Case: | NZXT Phantom 630 |
| Monitor: | Asus PQ321 + Samsung 305T |
| Video Cards: |
XFX Radeon R9 280X Double Dissipation Asus Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition AMD Radeon HD 7970 AMD Radeon HD 7950 Boost NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA 331.40 Beta AMD Catalyst 13.11 Beta 1 |
| OS: | Windows 8.1 Pro |
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Wreckage - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
I did not see these on Newegg yet. Did AMD actually rebrand a card twice and paper launch it twice???Will Robinson - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
That "rebrand" just kicked the crap out of NVDA's GTX770 for $100 less.Read it and weep.
Wreckage - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
At least you can buy a 770 right now. I suppose you could print out a 280 and tape it to the side of your computer. Wake me when they can beat the GK110.rtsurfer - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
If you had bothered to read the article you would have known that these cards are launching this week.Also,your beloved GK110 will be dealt with by R9 290X. I think you'll have to wait till October 15th for that news,as that is when the NDA expires.
colonelclaw - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Blimey, some people here are never happy. This card is basically a 770 but $100 cheaper. You know what that means? Nvidia will soon be dropping the price of the 770 and hopefully the 780 too - great news all round.Stop whining about 'rebadging' etc, the only thing that matters to 95% of gamers is the relationship between price and framerates.
Da W - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Precisely. I don't get fanboïsm. I'm gonna run 3600X1920 with full detail at an afordable price before christmas, be it with a 780 or a 290X. Of course 3 screens works better on AMD, i might be willing to pay a premium.gobaers - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Add a Z axis for power consumption / noise (two sides of the same coin). I'd take a small hit in framerate for a cooler or quieter card.stefstef - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
looks like the 260 is going to replace the 7790 cards. now you get for the price the 7790 cards were introduced the 260. the 7790 prices dropped. now i wonder if i replace my 6670 for my 720p monitor with the rather cheap 7790 or get the new 260.Will Robinson - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
R9 280X looks very good at $300....the improvements in noise and heat output are commendable.I'll be interested to see how it performs in BF4 after the Mantle API update.
It looks very strong in BF4 beta already.
http://techreport.com/review/25466/amd-radeon-r9-2...
nathanddrews - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Hmm, I think I'll wait for the next rebadge (re-rebadge) at 20nm. Maybe by summer they'll shrink and add the audio enhancements to the whole lineup. I'm happy for the MSRP price being $299, it should force the 7970GE to under that.If anything, I'm hoping that AMD's new lineup forces NVIDIA to stop overcharging for their products. I know that the market drives pricing, but if price scaled with performance, that means that the GTX700 should be $300 and the GTX780 should be about $350? Not that it will happen like that... but the 780 should not be over $400.