The Radeon R9 280X Review: Feat. Asus & XFX - Meet The Radeon 200 Series
by Ryan Smith on October 8, 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 has always favored NVIDIA GPUs to some extent, and of course this will carry over to 280X. The 280X is still well clear of the cheaper GTX 760, but it’s not going to be catching the GTX 770 any time soon. Nor will the factory overclock of the Asus card close that gap, though it will at least get the performance of a 280X card above 50fps.
Looking at our FCAT data quickly, the data is unremarkable. Bioshock has more variance than most other games, but even so everyone is able to stay under 3%.
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Exactly. I helped get the GPU14 data in bench (we'll toss it live at anandtech.com/bench once the smoke cleans) and inserted graphs while Ryan was finishing up the conclusion.Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
er smoke clears.just4U - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
You guys have to use your noggin a little bit here and "THINK" This isn't about being told by AMD to get anything out.. Or special relationships. All the review sites (which are likely under restriction) are trying to get their articles out as soon as their allowed. There's a push of initial interest that they capitalize on and being late to the game disappoints the readers who are noticing a new product launch at their shops and etailers and wanting info about it.HisDivineOrder - Wednesday, October 9, 2013 - link
Plus, the free trip to Hawaii has made all the review sites a lot more forgiving lately. That's the best part of the free trip to Hawaii for AMD.They managed to make all the gaming review sites who went look fishy in their bias. In particular, AMD has targeted Anandtech to make them look especially fishy with their "AMD Center." Then when eventually these sites turn against them, they'll have by then had months of Intel and/or nVidia doing what AMD has always wanted: making the review sites look biased.
Then they cut funding in a few months and scream at the top of their lungs how biased review sites are. Shrugging, they'll say, "Just look how AMD, Intel, and nVidia all agree." And it'll all have started with a special advertising arrangement around an "AMD Center" and a free trip to Hawaii.
AMD may not have many resources, but they're savvy in how they're undermining review sites. Of course, they were testing the waters last year with the "review in parts" review of Piledriver. That was just the opening act.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
We prioritized getting performance data and pages of tech analysis out first before the tables and finishing touches. We have done this in the past with previous AMD/NV reviews, and we always show up in the comments mentioning what we're still working on. The complexity of the launch skyrocketed as we used it as an opportunity to switch to a new (IVB-E) testbed, which meant re-running everything.For whatever reason, in the second half of the year we've been given a ton of stuff to review in a very short period of time (two iPhones in a week, three Samsung devices in 5 days). There's no ad impact here, just our desire to have something up when the NDA lifts. It's an internal policy, nothing more or less.
just4U - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
and it's a good policy..They just listed these products at the computer shop I deal with (under new releases) a few hrs ago.. and my first thought was to come here and see if something was posted as nothing was up 8 hrs ago when I was looking at another article. Sure as hell.. You folks got something up for us to look at. It's timing really.. NDA lifts shops put up pre-orders sites try to get their articles out. Logical progression..
That being said, I don't see to many of these types of articles going up in real time like this.
haha.. I just want to get a look at the XFX card to see if they've made changes.
Da W - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
People just use the comment section or social medias to bitch and moan and cry and criticize at people, yet they don't do shit themselves. Web 2.0 is like a cancer and I'm growing sick of these crybabies.Don't listen to them Anand and keep up the good work.
dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Baseless accusation that doesn't even make any sense.Dug - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
You lead with 'no disrespect' and finish with unfounded accusations.Please worry about yourself and not Anandtech.
Jumangi - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
These aren't new cards. They are basically the same GPU's AMD has been shipping for almost 2 years now and it looks like they are going to try and pass them off again for another year. Why was this treated as some big new thing with a long article and a bunch of benchmarks? This whole thing could have been done in a little 2 paragraph news blurb.Man has PC hardware become so stagnant and boring lately...