The AMD Radeon R9 380X Review, Feat. ASUS STRIX
by Ryan Smith on November 23, 2015 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- Asus
- Radeon 300
The Test
For the review of the R9 380X we’ve had to make a few accommodations to our GPU testing protocol since our last major video card review, which we'd like to note.
Civilization: Beyond Earth has been deprecated, as the Rising Tide update has removed the built-in “lategameview” benchmark. Meanwhile AMD’s launch drivers for the R9 380X, Catalyst 15.11.1 Beta, are unfortunately not as solid as we’d like to see, as they have a repeatable issue with Far Cry 4 that causes it to crash with various AMD cards, including the R9 380X. As a result we’re unable to benchmark Far Cry 4 on the 380X at this time. Finally, we’re also unable to include compute benchmarks for R9 380X at reference clocks, as AMD’s drivers do not honor underclocking options with OpenCL programs.
CPU: | Intel Core i7-4960X @ 4.2GHz |
Motherboard: | ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional |
Power Supply: | Corsair AX1200i |
Hard Disk: | Samsung SSD 840 EVO (750GB) |
Memory: | G.Skill RipjawZ DDR3-1866 4 x 8GB (9-10-9-26) |
Case: | NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition |
Monitor: | Asus PQ321 |
Video Cards: | AMD Radeon R9 390 AMD Radeon R9 380X AMD Radeon R9 380 AMD Radeon R7 370 AMD Radeon HD 7970 AMD Radeon HD 7850 ASUS STRIX R9 380X NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (2GB) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 |
Video Drivers: | NVIDIA Release 358.50 Beta AMD Catalyst Cat 15.11.1 Beta |
OS: | Windows 8.1 Pro |
101 Comments
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Kalessian - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
The Crysis 3 numbers don't make sense to me, vsync get left on or something?Ryan Smith - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Nope. V-sync is off, and I can vouch that the instantaneous framerate does go over 60fps. That's just an amusing case of cards at this performance segment coming very close to averaging 60fps.DanNeely - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
For the price matchup table on the first page, the 4GB 960 starts at $220 vs $180 for the 2gb model. NVidia might not be splitting them apart by model number; but pricewise it has cards at both slots.tviceman - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Current cheapest 4gb GTX 960 on newegg (USA) is $180 w/o rebates. Next cheapest is $185 w/ additional $20 MIR. Next cheapest is $199 w/o rebate. Next cheapest is $210.There are plenty of 4gb GTX 960 cards for much less than $220.
nathanddrews - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
So... how much longer is AMD going to pretend that HDMI 2.0 doesn't exist? DP adapters are still MIA.extide - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Next gen GPU's dude...medi03 - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Cause dat 4k resolution is golden on card that can barely push 1440p...nathanddrews - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Irrelevant:1. Most 4K TVs that can do 4K60 4:4:4 over HDMI 2.0 can also do 1080p120, native input.
2. Games like Dota 2, LoL, and nearly all games prior to 2013 can be play 4K no problem by GPUs like this.
3. 4K60 video (YouTube, GameStream, etc.)
SpartyOn - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
This card is no better, and actually probably worse, than my three year old GTX 770 4GB and at best is equal to a GTX 960, which can be had for easily under $200.Is AMD even trying anymore?
looncraz - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Did you read the same review I did?The 380X is often 15% faster than the 960, and sometimes 30% faster... for average FPS. When it comes to the 99th percentile or minimum framerates there's just no comparison, 380x lays the smackdown on the 960.
Sometimes the 960 can do quite well, but it usually loses by quite a bit.
Your 770 is slower than the 960in some games, a bit faster in others. It is not as fast as the 380x, which is the same approximate performance of AMD's old 7970, which is a nearly four year old card.