The AMD Radeon R9 270X & R9 270 Review: Feat. Asus & HIS
by Ryan Smith on November 13, 2013 12:01 AM ESTBattlefield 3
Our major multiplayer action game of our benchmark suite is Battlefield 3, DICE’s 2011 multiplayer military shooter. Its ability to pose a significant challenge to GPUs has been dulled some by time and drivers, but it’s still a challenge if you want to hit the highest settings at the highest resolutions at the highest anti-aliasing levels. Furthermore while we can crack 60fps in single player mode, our rule of thumb here is that multiplayer framerates will dip to half our single player framerates, so hitting high framerates here may not be high enough.
When it comes to Battlefield 3, NVIDIA has the slight edge in general, so this is one of the 270 series weaker games. The 270X can hold GTX 660 to a draw, but in the more directly competitive 270 vs. GTX 660 matchup, GTX 660 is going to be 10% faster. In any case our highest setting will be marginally playable; the averages are more than fine, but the minimum framerates will in our experience drop below 30fps here, so a drop down to 2X MSAA or no MSAA may be necessary to get a consistent experience out of the 270 series.
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Quidam67 - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
you make a valid point in some respects, but keep in mind for some people (including me) that is a different class of card, in terms of it's power requirements and the physical form factor. At this level of card, I'm looking for a small card and preferably a single 6 pin power adapter. I'm working with a small sized rig here that can still offer solid 1080p gaming.jnad32 - Thursday, November 14, 2013 - link
What he said, and there are going to be hard as hell to find here very soon.dwade123 - Thursday, November 14, 2013 - link
It's struggling with current-gen games, and will become obsolete with next-gen console ports.creed3020 - Thursday, November 14, 2013 - link
"Finally for our look at noise, the results are fairly typical for every card except the Asus. Asus’s 270 by comparison to everything else now holds the new record for quietest card on our current testbed, coming in at just 36C"@ Ryan: I believe you meant to say 36 dB
Ryan Smith - Thursday, November 14, 2013 - link
Indeed I did. Thank you.Hrel - Thursday, November 14, 2013 - link
I don't under the 270X. Isn't that just an overclocked 270? Overclocking your GPU isn't hard, at all. Why would anyone pay extra for an overclock? Also, since when do GPU manufacturers release overclocked cards as if they're different cards?I'd like to see an overclocking comparison between the GTX660 and the 270. Find the highest stable OC on both then compare them.
I just really don't see the point of the 270X.
Da W - Friday, November 15, 2013 - link
It got an extra 6 pin connector.Tujan - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Is there going to be any advantages to using 8.1 Windows over Windows 7 where the newer cards advances are concerned ? That is will any of the advatages implemented to the new AMD cards 'not' be an advatage to Windows 7 users ?hapkiman - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
"it shipped at lower clockspeeds then 7870," "Then" should be written as "than," and a "the" is necessary. e.g.:"it shipped at lower clockspeeds than the 7870,"
P39Airacobra - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
I bought a HIS Radeon R9 270 IceQ X2, I originally was going to get the MSI gaming model, But right before I got the money Newegg raised it from $179 to $189, So I instead got the HIS for $179. (10 bucks is 10 bucks man!) And I am very happy with the HIS 270 it performs very very well. Best fastest GPU I ever owned. And it will match the 270x just by simply going into AMD overdrive and moving the clock from 925 to 1050. It is a amazing card, I highly recommend it.