R9 380x reviews and Specifications

[Azix]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/R9_380X_Strix/23.html

http://www.sweclockers.com/test/21303-amd-radeon-r9-380x/16#content

http://techreport.com/review/29316/amd-radeon-r9-380x-graphics-card-reviewed

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-radeon-r9-380x-4gb-review,1.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3005...cs-card-for-1080p-gaming-priced-to-fight.html

 

[Headfoot]

Looking at the 380x -> 390 -> Fury X, it becomes immediately apparent that not increasing ROP count on the Fury X was a terrible idea. 380x -> 390 nets you a huge performance increase yet it doesn't actually have all that many more shaders or much greater clock speed. The 32 -> 64 doubled ROPs are clearly making up a big chunk of this performance increase. So why then they decided to massively increase shaders on the Fury X but leave ROPs the same as on Hawaii -- I don't know. Maybe they overestimated how much GCN 1.2 + the Fury modifications were supposed to help the ROP throughput? It seems like even just moving to 80 or 96 ROPs would have completely changed the Fury X performance profile for the better, even if it needed to lose some shaders in the process.

 

[Techhog]

Godspeed, AMD. I wonder how bad the monopoly will be. $1000 for a full GV104?

 

[Azix]

Looking at the 380x -> 390 -> Fury X, it becomes immediately apparent that not increasing ROP count on the Fury X was a terrible idea. 380x -> 390 nets you a huge performance increase yet it doesn't actually have all that many more shaders or much greater clock speed. The 32 -> 64 doubled ROPs are clearly making up a big chunk of this performance increase. So why then they decided to massively increase shaders on the Fury X but leave ROPs the same as on Hawaii -- I don't know. Maybe they overestimated how much GCN 1.2 + the Fury modifications were supposed to help the ROP throughput? It seems like even just moving to 80 or 96 ROPs would have completely changed the Fury X performance profile for the better, even if it needed to lose some shaders in the process.

was an architectural limitation no? That change would have been a much larger change for them to make. increasing the shader count should still help with games relying on compute I am guessing.

 

[Lyfer]

A terrible price at $240 when the performance is about 5% of a Gtx 960. Gtx 970 and R9 390's have been dipping to as low as $260 as of late which will give you a 30-40 % performance jump.

 

[Red Hawk]

So it handily beats the 960, that's good. But...other than that, it's a bit of a disappointment. It can't even consistently beat the 7970 GHz/280X. There was a time when I was waiting for a full Tonga to come out, but decided to go with a 290X -- no regrets there.

 

[Mondozei]

TechReport's Witcher 3 numbers look very out of place. Here are Hardware Unboxed's numbers

Other than that, we're seeing a 10-15% increase as I thought(and got a lot of heat for), meaning that a brand new 280X which I can buy for $199 is a better value proposition, even if it's 4 years old by now.

They should lower the price to $199, at least they can compete on wattage compared to the 280X.

 

[Techhog]

A terrible price at $240 when the performance is about 5% of a Gtx 960. Gtx 970 and R9 390's have been dipping to as low as $260 as of late which will give you a 30-40 % performance jump.

You have a strange definition of 5%.

 

[Headfoot]

the bottom line remains unchanged, if you can swing the budget there are still only 4 cards worth buying. 970/290/390 and 980 Ti. $280 390 and 970 embarrasses the 380x and the 960 totally for $50 more.

 

[Mondozei]

Here is Sweclocker's new performance index. Instead of posting one-off games benchmarks, here's the full suite all in one:

Neck and neck with the 280X yet 30 dollars more expensive. Terrible value.

Also just a paltry 5% improvement over the 380 (stock to stock comparison). Even lower than my (optimistic) 10-15% suggestion.

 

[Azix]

Added some summaries. I was expecting it would be as fast as the 780 overall but doesn't seem so. Also of note they are showing the 960 at the same level as a 270x now. (Techpowerup)

Strange things

 

[SimianR]

the bottom line remains unchanged, if you can swing the budget there are still only 4 cards worth buying. 970/290/390 and 980 Ti. $280 390 and 970 embarrasses the 380x and the 960 totally for $50 more.

At 1080p it's 25% slower than the 290/390 for about 20% less money. So yes, the 290/390/970 are technically a slightly better value - but some people don't want to spend that much money on a GPU. It's a good midrange card with 4GB of VRAM that puts up pretty acceptable fps at a decent price point. I think it will be a great alternative to the 960.

 

[Headfoot]

At 1080p it's 25% slower than the 290/390 for about 20% less money. So yes, the 290/390/970 are technically a slightly better value - but some people don't want to spend that much money on a GPU. It's a good midrange card with 4GB of VRAM that puts up pretty acceptable fps at a decent price point. I think it will be a great alternative to the 960.

If I had a 560 Ti or similar GPU from that era, its going to be a lot smarter to wait and save the additional $50 than it is to buy a 380x or 960.

Buying new, I would reduce CPU/Memory/Motherboard/Monitor budget by $50 to move up and gain all that performance. I just don't see why I'd ever buy a 960 or 380x when much better cards are so close in price.

Think about this, you can buy the reference 290 (crap cooler and all) for $10 less AR than the 380x. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202043&cm_re=r9_290-_-14-202-043-_-Product. If it's like other 290s, you could easily put -25% power tune, undervolt by 30-50mv and still overclock it to 1 ghz and have the noise be manageable even on the reference cooler, and it would still be substantially faster than the 380x.

 

[SimianR]

If I had a 560 Ti or similar GPU from that era, its going to be a lot smarter to wait and save the additional $50 than it is to buy a 380x or 960.

Buying new, I would reduce CPU/Memory/Motherboard/Monitor budget by $50 to move up and gain all that performance. I just don't see why I'd ever buy a 960 or 380x when much better cards are so close in price.

Think about this, you can buy the reference 290 (crap cooler and all) for $10 less AR than the 380x. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202043&cm_re=r9_290-_-14-202-043-_-Product

I would do the same, in fact I already have a 290. And I agree on the CPU point - I find it funny when people go all out on an i7 and pair it with a weak GPU. But my original point was there there are still going to be people out there that are shopping in this price range for a new GPU and don't want to spend nearly $300. If they were looking for say a $200 GPU - then for them I think it would be worth it to spend the extra $30. I don't ever think more choice is a bad thing. Having strong GPU's at every price point is just a good thing for pc gamers and hopefully AMD can move some more units because they need all the market share gains they can get. Great deal on that 290, though those deals aren't always available and that cooler might scare a lot of people away.

 

[Ken g6]

Also of note they are showing the 960 at the same level as a 270x now. (Techpowerup)

I noticed they upgraded their test system, with Skylake and newer Catalyst drivers, and re-ran all their benchmarks. Too bad Sweclockers don't go low-end enough on their graphics cards to see if it's accurate or not.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Whoever bought a cheap 290 earlier this year has to feel like a genius.

 

[ElFenix]

Whoever bought a cheap 290 earlier this year has to feel like a genius.

290 has been the best value proposition in video cards for well over a year now.

my feeling on this is if you can get a 290 or a 970 for under $275, this card isn't worth $229. then again, it's brand new and we'll see where the price settles in a month or so. SRPs tend to be high.

what is clear is AMD really needs GCN 2.0 on a process shrink. we're about to start the 4th year of TSMC's 28 nm being the main processor for foundry clients.

 

[gamervivek]

Added some summaries. I was expecting it would be as fast as the 780 overall but doesn't seem so. Also of note they are showing the 960 at the same level as a 270x now. (Techpowerup)

Strange things

Yup, GCN1.0 cards are rocking at TPU,

370 gained 18%, putting it on-par with the GTX 760 & 950.
270X gained 17%, putting it on-par with the GTX 960.
285 gained 8%, putting it slightly ahead of the 770.
280X gained 18% over the 770.
290 gained 5%, putting it on-par with the GTX 970.
Fury X gained 7%, putting it about 5% away from the 980 Ti.
295X2 gained 6% over the Titan X.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1880254

Skylake + Win10 + newer games, total AMD domination at lower end.

 

[alexruiz]

Sadly, numbers don't look that impressive.
I was expecting a convincing victory over the R9 380 and R9 280X (~15% or so) Not so
On a side note, the holy warriors at techreport surely got orders from the green team to pick a new suite of games that would make the GTX960 look good. BOp3 and FO4 already as buggy as they are? Oh well,

Now, back to AMD, why is it marketed against the GTX960? The R9 380 is already clearly faster than the GTX960! Heck, the R9 285 was already faster than the GTX 960. So the R9 380X has to be marketed differently. Unless they plan to bring it down in price to <$200, as many GTX 960 are already below $200, why market it against the GTX960? That would mean bring the R9 380 down to ~$150 against the GTX950, but then, a few of the GTX950 are already at <$130.

I am honestly expecting a big performance jump on subsequent drivers, something doesn't seem right. I have 2 similar systems at home, FX8320s at 4.2GHz windows 10 with cat 15.10b2, one of them running a R9 380 4GB, the other an R9 280X. The system with the R9 380 pulls higher numbers. I'll have to install cat 15.11b3.

Still, unimpressive so far.

 

[boozzer]

290 has been the best value proposition in video cards for well over a year now.

my feeling on this is if you can get a 290 or a 970 for under $275, this card isn't worth $229. then again, it's brand new and we'll see where the price settles in a month or so. SRPs tend to be high.

what is clear is AMD really needs GCN 2.0 on a process shrink. we're about to start the 4th year of TSMC's 28 nm being the main processor for foundry clients.

http://flash.newegg.com/Product/N82E16814202043?icid=WP_3_11192015 new egg flash deal, it is 290 reference for 180$ after mir.

even if we include a 3rd party cooler we buy to put on it it will still only come up to 230$ people should grab one if they need it.

always keep an eye out for deals. a 290 is 30-35% better than a 280x or 380x.

290 reference cooler noise video as of oct 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PX55SP1xtY

 

[3DVagabond]

I gotta laugh at the people in this thread acting disappointed. It's not like there was any secret to what the performance was going to be. 380 to 380X is the same as 280 to 280X. It simply saves power with the smaller bus and adds features.

Also, great(sic) bench selection in the OP.

 

[Elixer]

I don't see any US retailer showing them in a product listing yet, so, that seems odd.
Usually, they are all over it.

I expect there to be rebates and or free games to make the price seem like it is worth it.

*edit, Newegg now lists 380X cards.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...er=BESTMATCH&Description=380x&N=-1&isNodeId=1

 

[el etro]

Power efficiency goes up versus Tahiti. Surely they could make the card match a 7970LightningBE already at stock, but they preferred build a simpler PCB/card. Cheaper to manufacture i guess.

 

[SPBHM]

Yup, GCN1.0 cards are rocking at TPU,
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1880254

Skylake + Win10 + newer games, total AMD domination at lower end.

check the list of games being tested, some bad games for AMD were removed, that's the main reason, not Win, driver or whatever, it's not like they didn't use some extremely fast Haswell before.


as for the 380X, I guess it shows that selling Tonga with a few CUs disabled for such a long time didn't change anything.

it's to expensive yes, but it happens with most cards, once it gets a few price drops it's probably going to be OK, like most have said, for the current price it's way better to go with a 290/390/970

also for a very cheap PC I think the 960 or even 950 makes more sense

 

[Erenhardt]

Yup, GCN1.0 cards are rocking at TPU,

​

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1880254

Skylake + Win10 + newer games, total AMD domination at lower end.

But the disparity between 290x and 390x is huge! And it is the same gpu core in both.