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
Overclocking
Finally, no review of a video card would be complete without a look at overclocking performance.
With ASUS setting the STRIX R9 380X’s factory clockspeed to 1030MHz – 60MHz ahead of AMD’s reference clock of 970MHz – ASUS is already significantly eating into the headroom available on the card, and the 1050MHz OC mode further cuts into that. We don’t have any voltage control (we can’t even read the voltage) so the card can only be overclocked as far as the Tonga GPU can go on default voltage. Meanwhile ASUS hasn’t touched the memory clockspeed at all, which should mean there’s a bit more headroom there to play with.
| ASIS STRIX R9 380X Overclocking | ||||
| ASUS STRIX R9 380X OC (Stock) | ASUS STRIX R9 380X (OC) | |||
| Boost Clock | 1030MHz | 1100MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 5.7Gbps | 6.4Gbps | ||
| Power Limit | 100% | 115% | ||
Ultimately we were able to push the STRIX R9 380X OC from 1030MHz to 1100MHz on the GPU, a 70MHz (7%) overclock. I fully expect that Tonga could do better with more voltage – and the ASUS cooler could keep up – but at the same time it would take a bad power efficiency situation and make it worse. Otherwise memory overclocking was a bit more fruitful, as we were able to push the card from 5.7Gbps to 6.4Gbps, a 700Mbps (12%) performance increase. Note that relative to the original 7970, the R9 380X has a narrower 256-bit memory bus, so if there are any situations where GCN 1.2’s color compression technology can’t make up the difference, a memory overclock may help to close the gap.
Overall overclocking is good for another 5% performance increase over the STRIX R9 380X's factory overclock. Though enough to be significant, as we guessed base upon the clockspeeds, ASUS has already tapped much of the overclocking headroom available on the card. For reference clocked cards on the other hand, assuming that they can overclock similarly well, this means they can look forward to a total of 10% or so from overclocking.
Since we can't overvolt, the power/temp/noise impact of overclocking is limited. Under gaming workloads the difference is a handful of watts and a nothing for temperature or noise. Otherwise FurMark, with the higher power target, pushes the STRIX card a bit harder, but everything still remains within reason.
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SpartyOn - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
My 770 is at 1400 MHz core / 7940 MHz memory; trust me, neither the GTX 960 or this 380x are beating me and I'm not digging into my wallet until Pascal comes out. It was tough when the GTX 980 Ti was released, but I'm sticking to my guns.At 1080p, which is where the 960 and 380x should be competing (because if you buy either of these for 1440p+, you're a moron), if they had gotten a 960 4GB for comparison, there wouldn't be much difference. You can get a 960 4GB, which is a one year old card, for less than $200 and it's essentially just as good at stock. The few frames the 380x wins in this review is mostly due to the VRAM limit on the 960 2GB.
Plus you can overclock a 960 to insane levels, so why spend $229 on the 380x when you can spend $180 on a GTX 960 4GB and overclock it if you want more speed?
Sushisamurai - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Errr... Isn't the 960 a rebadge of the 770?Sushisamurai - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Note: rebadge in the sense that the hardware is super similar, minus the maxwell gen 2 featuresSushisamurai - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Oops I lied. The 770 is not comparable to the 960; I'm assuming it's better. Mind u, the 280X and 770 were comparable back in the day.silverblue - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Yep, as the 770 is essentially a tweaked 680, which traded blows with the 7970/7970GE,CiccioB - Tuesday, November 24, 2015 - link
The sad thing is how all you make comparisons on this kind of technology. GPU scales well when made fat. So the point of "performance" is really moot when doing comparisons. It's like saying that the 750Ti is the same as a GTX480 because they perform similarly.This card (like all the new AMD 300 series) are simply fat, bloated, clocked at their limit GPUs that are sold under cost to compete with smaller more efficient architectures created by the competition (that is selling them at premium prices).
This 380X card is a complete fail in trying to make AMD advance in its fight. Competition has done marvelous things meanwhile: they came with a GPU, the GM106, which is half the GK104 in term of size and power consumption, and has the same performances. This is the progress the competition did while AMD passed from GCN 1.0 to GCN 1.2, which has only few tricks and hacks but nothing really good to bring that already obsolete architecture to the new level of competition.
Sorry, but if you are excited by this kind of "evolution" and you do not understand where this has brought "your favorite company" to, you really deserve to stay a generation back in terms of innovations. And be happy of this Tonga which will be sold for few bucks in few month and be completely forgotten when Pascal will annihilate it at it first iteration.
britjh22 - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Comparing a 2.5 year old card that cost $450-500 against a $230 card.... and complaining if AMD is even trying... your bias is showing sir. You shouldn't feel the need to upgrade yet in my opinion, unless of course your card is being crippled by NVIDIA's drivers, whoops!tviceman - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
GTX 770 launched at $399, not $450. Interestingly, the GTX 770 was a smaller chip and drew less power. So, tossing the consumer economics aside, SpartyOn raises a good point.britjh22 - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
The 770 2GB launched at $399, but the 4gb launched at anywhere from $450 to $500 depending on the model.200380051 - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
The power consumtion of the 380X under load is lower with Furmark than it is with Crysis 3, while it is the opposite with the GTX 960. Any thoughts on that?