The AMD Radeon R9 270X & R9 270 Review: Feat. Asus & HIS
by Ryan Smith on November 13, 2013 12:01 AM ESTGRID 2
The final game in our benchmark suite is also our racing entry, Codemasters’ GRID 2. Codemasters continues to set the bar for graphical fidelity in racing games, and with GRID 2 they’ve gone back to racing on the pavement, bringing to life cities and highways alike. Based on their in-house EGO engine, GRID 2 includes a DirectCompute based advanced lighting system in its highest quality settings, which incurs a significant performance penalty but does a good job of emulating more realistic lighting within the game world.
Our last game once again sees the 270 series doing well for itself. The 270X won’t be catching up to the GTX 760 here, but for sub-$200 cards it easily holds the top spot. Meanwhile for the 270 it once more easily beats the GTX 660, this time by 16%. At the same time the 270 series holds the notable distinction of being able to maintain 60fps here when GTX 660 cannot.
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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.