The AMD Radeon R9 270X & R9 270 Review: Feat. Asus & HIS
by Ryan Smith on November 13, 2013 12:01 AM ESTCrysis 3
Still one of our most punishing benchmarks, Crysis 3 needs no introduction. With Crysis 3, Crytek has gone back to trying to kill computers and still holds “most punishing shooter” title in our benchmark suite. Only in a handful of setups can we even run Crysis 3 at its highest (Very High) settings, and that’s still without AA. Crysis 1 was an excellent template for the kind of performance required to drive games for the next few years, and Crysis 3 looks to be much the same for 2013.
Crysis 3 is another game that NVIDIA and AMD regularly go back and forth on, with NVIDIA in this case holding the edge at 1080p at high quality. The 270X maintains a slight lead, but this means the 270 falls behind, once again trailing the GTX 660 by about 6%. Asus’s overclock will cut into the gap some here, but not enough to catch up.
Meanwhile compared to AMD’s 7800 series cards, this ends up being the biggest gains we’ve seen for the 270 series. The difference between the 270X and 7870 is 13%, owing primarily to the memory bandwidth increase for the 270 series cards, and showing just how memory bandwidth limited Pitcairn can be at times. Even 270 is 5% faster, despite the lower GPU clockspeeds.
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iTzSnypah - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
I'm not sure I like the R9 270. It should have been a cut card ~18CU's. I mean you can edit the BIOS to let up to +50% power limit so the only differentiation of the 270 and 270X (power) can be side stepped rather easily.The only hope is the 270X is binned much much higher than the 270 (to the point where the 270's are dogs), else there really isn't that much reason to buy one.
Also I'm surprised that the ASUS R9 270 wasn't a single 8pin connector.
blanarahul - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
A single 8-pin connector would essentially make it a 270X.Gnarr - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
Are you really complaining that the card is not handicapped enough and that you can get a very powerful card for a low price? And you say that you don't like that you can get this card this cheap?P39Airacobra - Saturday, May 31, 2014 - link
WTH? Really? That is the dumbest thing I ever heard! That is like getting a million dollars and then saying you should have got less. What is wrong with you?I am glad the 270 is just the same as the 270X, I only paid $179 for it, And all I have to do is go into CCC and set my clock from 925mhz to 1050, And bam I got 270X , And with better power efficiency. However I leave it at 925mhz because it has more than enough power to max most games at stock. You can't get a better deal than this right now. Now if AMD can just get their drivers right and keep the artifact problem gone. So far 14.4 stable has no artifacts, But the new 14.6 beta has artifacts in games that require physx, (like Mafia 2) So I just keep 14.4 installed. It's sad that it has been over 2 years and AMD is still having artifact problems in their drivers. This has effected allot of 280/280X users. Some figure out that it is the drivers, And others just returned their cards, It's amazing how nobody wants to admit what the real problem is, It is like they want to worship and praise AMD instead of solving the artifact issue.
The Von Matrices - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
The 270X seems like a pointless card to anyone willing to adjust clock speeds since it is the same GPU as its cheaper sibling, much like the 7970 GHz edition was to the 7970. I remember most 7970s (including mine) easily clocked to 7970 GHz edition speeds with little or no voltage increase. Is the 270 the same in regards to reaching the clock speed of the 270X?kyuu - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
I'm guessing the difference will be binning. So while you might end up with a 270 that can clock up to (or beyond) a 270X, there's a chance you may not if you were unlucky and ended up with lower quality silicon.blanarahul - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
The difference will be TDP. I think the 270 is already operating near it's power limit. But the 270X has a lot of headroom.yacoub35 - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
The right choice would be to get a 7950 Boost for under $200 and skip the 270-series generation which is rebranded lower-level hardware.doggghouse - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
Yeah, the 7950 Boost is a great bargain for now... until the supplies dry up. I managed to grab one for my nephew's new PC for $160 after rebate! It even came with the Never Settle Gold... going to be a great addition to his first PC :)garadante - Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - link
I'm not sure if I'm missing the section that points it out, but what does the asterisk behind the 280X in the graphs represent? Does it represent some sort of caveat or warning that we should be aware of?