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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alfredska - Wednesday, October 9, 2013 - link
Yes, I made a couple mistakes in trimming the fat from Ryan's writing. I should have done another proof-read myself. This wasn't the point of my post, though.Ryan's review is littered with sentence pauses that drastically slow down your ability to read the article. Some examples are: starting too many sentences with words like "ultimately" or "meanwhile"; making needless references to earlier statements; using past or present perfect tense when just past or present tense is appropriate. I wrote the above example hoping that Ryan would put it next to his own writing and see whether he can 1) read it faster, and 2) retain more information from this version.
I can accept a misspelling here and there and even some accidental word injections of which I was guilty. The fluidity needs work though. If the reader cannot glide easily between paragraphs, they will stop reading and just look at pictures.
chuck.norris.and.son - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
tl:dr :( blablablaCan't you nail it down: AMD or Nvidia? Which GFX card should i buy to play Blockbuster like BF 4?
ShieTar - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
How about not buying any new GFX card and investing the savings into books in order to improve your reading skills?Will Robinson - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Radeon 280X will be the sweet spot card to get for BF4.R9 290X will be the open class champ over GTX780 I suspect.
piroroadkill - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
The best AMD card you can buy with your money, simply because Battlefield 4 will eventually feature the Mantle renderer which is for GCN cards only, and will probably be a killer feature.hrga - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Most moronic branding ever (at least the one to be overrun). They cutout vanilla 7850 or top end 7950 from the HD7000 lineup and call it with confusing R9/R7, unrealistically stupid marketing where nothing material stand behind those names.Another rebranding?
- Yes. [thinking. What the heck did you expect guys]
Not most successful?
- [thinking. depends on POV] Well, it's here to milk the most cash as our CPU business didnt produced anything valuable for three years. And we also must have something interesting to present in our slideshow presentation for investors. If we couldn't afford to produce whole new lineup we could always produce yet another rebranded line just like nvidia. We always learn from our (cartel) competition, and customers don't seem to have any objections on that matter.
So that's why you retain those moronically high prices?
- We just adjust that according to our competition (cartel)
But you never lower prices for HD7870 which today celebrates its second birthday and is produced on highly matured 28nm for at least six month. Instead you just rebranded it for second time after HD8860, so now we have R9 270X too. Don't you think you're customers would like to see some new designs while putting old products on discount prices?
Or at least you could introduce that R9 270, which is same old HD7870, with lower prices than todays HD7870 retail prices are?!
Instead of higher up prices for same performance (source Newgg http://imageshack.dk/imagesfree/xLh43741.jpg).
And why the heck R9 desination for this mediocre mainstream product?! You could weaselishly sell this c-rap at the end of 2011, but "Hello AMD!" It the end of 2013.
Pitcairn used in HD7800/HD8800 seriesis is smaller chip than Evergreen in HD5800, which only three years ago was produced on troublesome early 40nm process while this is two year old design now produced on highly mature TSMC 28nm-HK node for at least six month with far better yields? HD5850 had same or even lower prices at EOL (only year after introduction) than todays two year old Pitcairn desing. How do you explain that?
- Well ...Milking you know ... When you have good cartel environment like we have competing with nvidia we could sky rocket prices. And you know even crappy Intels Knights Corner chips today produced at 22nm would be any cheaper because Intel knows how to milk moneys on their tick-tock performance introductions and they certainly would gave up that experience in case of "Chip Previously Known as Larabee" (CPKL)
labodhibo - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Must read this.. totally different perspective:http://www.techspot.com/review/722-radeon-r9-270x-...
AssBall - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Well done review. I kinda like what Asus did with its 280x version.Typo: "Asus calls it “CoolTech” and it’s essentially an effort to build a fan that’s blow a an axial fan and a blower (radial) fan at the same time,"
[blow -> both?]
zlandar - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
This is why I wanted the Asus 770 card also in the recent 770 GTX roundup. The cooler design seems superior for single GPU purposes as long as you have the room for it in your case.AxialLP7 - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Not trying to be AFC, just want to make sense of this: "Asus calls it “CoolTech” and it’s essentially an effort to build a fan that’s blow a an axial fan and a blower (radial) fan at the same time, explaining the radial-like center and axial-like outer edge of the fan." Can someone help? This is in the "ASUS RADEON R9 280X DIRECTCU II TOP" section...