The Radeon R9 280X Review: Feat. Asus & XFX - Meet The Radeon 200 Series
by Ryan Smith on October 8, 2013 12:01 AM ESTOverclocking
With our look at the stock performance of our 280X cards complete, let’s take a brief look at overclocking.
When it comes to overclocking this is going to be a somewhat unfair competition for the two cards. The Asus card has by the very necessity of its existence already been binned. Furthermore while the Asus card supports voltage adjustments the XFX card does not (MSI Afterburner says it does, but adjusting the value has no effect). As such we get to drive what’s already a better GPU harder and with more voltage than the other. Still, this will give us the chance to see where everything will top out at.
| Radeon R9 280X Overclocking | ||||
| XFX Radeon R9 280X DD | Asus Radeon R9 280X DCU II TOP | |||
| Shipping Core Clock | 850MHz | 970MHz | ||
| Shipping Boost Clock | 1000MHz | 1070Mhz | ||
| Shipping Memory Clock | 6GHz | 6.4GHz | ||
| Shipping Boost Voltage | 1.2v | 1.2v | ||
| Overclock Core Clock | 880MHz | 1010MHz | ||
| Overclock Boost Clock | 1030MHz | 1110MHz | ||
| Overclock Memory Clock | 6.6GHz | 6.8GHz | ||
| Overclock Max Boost Voltage | 1.2v | 1.263v | ||
As it turns out, neither card overclocked by very much. The XFX card, lacking additional voltage, could only do 30MHz more, for a 4% base/3% boost overclock. Better luck was found on the memory with a 600MHz (10%) overclock there. The Asus card meanwhile was good for 40MHz more, for a 4% base/4% boost overclock, while its memory could do an additional 800MHz (13%). But at the same time this required dialing the voltage up to 1.263v – as high as we’re willing to go for this card. The power cost of doing that will be extreme.
With our 280X cards primarily bottlenecked by GPU performance as opposed to memory performance, the performance gains from our overclocking adventure is limited. 3% on average for both cards is 3% for free, but it’s barely a useful overclock. We typically need 5% before overclocks start becoming interesting and significant enough to improve playability or make higher graphical settings practical.
To the credit of the Asus card and its cooler, despite the increased clockspeeds, voltage, and power consumption, it’s able to keep GPU temperatures and load noise to reasonable levels given the circumstances. Still, with the increase in power required to achieve this overclock (particularly in the worst case scenario of FurMark) it’s hard to argue that the additional overclocking was worth the performance gains. With such an extensive factory overclock this is a card that may be better off left at factory clocks.
The XFX card meanwhile suffers much less of a power ramp up due to the lack of voltage control, but we’re still looking at something of a wash on the power/performance front.
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Galidou - Saturday, October 12, 2013 - link
If he really has to whine about high end video card prices, he's new to this because many generations before, the top of the line was often sold for 800$. Anyway, if you simply run 1080p(which most of us does) you can be totally satisfied with a 150-300$ video card and two or three graphical options not maxed(you won't notice it unless you stop playing to just look at the graphics) which is quite different from older generations where you had to pay big bucks to run at higher resolution/graphical settings.I bought a 660ti for 300$ when it came out a year ago and I still run everything at very high/max settings in 1080p PERFECTLY. No reason to whine at all nowadays unless you're a kiddo that is new to the gaming industry and pc gaming gear.
Etern205 - Monday, October 14, 2013 - link
Many generations before top of the end graphic cards like ATi Radeon 9700 Pro, the best card of its time cost $300, and the 2nd best, ATi Radeon 9500 Pro cost just $200.High-end card is the past don't cost a arm and a leg, you can get one and still have enough to feed yourself for a week. Now they cost a arm and a leg, where you have to starve yourself for a month just to have enough to buy one.
hansmuff - Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - link
The Matrox MGA Millennium 4MB was $549 at launch and became a somewhat legendary performer in DOS VESA modes. That's 1995.bwat47 - Monday, December 9, 2013 - link
Yeah, a 280x was a steal for 299, excellent card.Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
We're working on it :) AMD gave Ryan very little time to go through four new cards, it's being added in real time here.Sunrise089 - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
No disrespect Anand, but 'special relationship' with AMD notwithstanding, if they're asking you to have your article up at midnight for a launch but you can't even have product specs available by then I worry the advertising side of things is encroaching a bit into the editorial side.zanon - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Have to agree. I've always appreciated in the past that Anandtech would take the time to do reviews right, even if it very, very often meant that they'd come in days or more after the early rush. We've already got plenty of early rush stuff on the net that is of poor quality, please do not go that route. Just do a pipeline piece with early conclusions as you have before. You've got this going up across all twitter/rss/whatever feeds, everyone sees it and comes in, and it's a really poor showing.If AMD tells you to hit a certain launch window please kindly tell them to get stuffed or get your hardware earlier next time. If you're letting them rush you to their own schedule that feels like a really bad sign.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
See the above response, but I'd add: you don't have to worry about us going down the path of lowest common denominator. I hardly think that what was posted here at midnight was even close to fitting that description.Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
er below response :)chizow - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Easy guys, it's happened with other non-AMD reviews too in the past, I know other staff writers will often chip in and help with some aspects of the reviews, like tables and graphs, and sometimes the entire piece comes together online in real-time. It's like a big group project or presentation, sometimes it just doesn't go off perfectly on such short deadlines.