Results: The Unigines
Unigine Heaven 4.0
This particular benchmark nicely shows the performance hit that we would expect to see with varied levels of tessellation enabled. I tested with it disabled, moderate, normal, and extreme. We should get a good feeling about how these cards handle tessellation under various levels. Resolution was set at 1920×1200, no AA, 16X AF, and High quality settings.
This benchmark is very friendly to NVIDIA cards. Even though AMD has improved the tessellation performance of the GCN architecture, it still does not have the performance to match up with NVIDIA’s Kepler architecture. The 280X is slightly faster at the lower tessellation levels than the 770, but when we get to Extreme then the 770 is quite a bit faster. The 270X is slower at every level as compared to the 760 this time.
Unigine Valley
This is another new benchmark released by the fine Unigine people. It is really stunning to watch and has an amazing view distance. It encompasses all of the latest DX11 technology, but it is not focused on tessellation as Heaven is. Overall it is a great representation of what a next generation “open world” game engine should be able to do. Testing was done at 1920×1200, no AA, 16X AF, and Ultra quality levels.
Valley is another benchmark that is more friendly towards NVIDIA cards as both the 770 and 760 are much faster than the 280X and 270X. CrossFire scaling is again pretty impressive. The frame pacing fixes that the latest drivers offer for non-Eyefinity resolutions makes the experience very smooth and fluid.
Looks like very solid cards.
Looks like very solid cards. I really want to see some custom cooled versions of the 290 soon.
Ryan has already reviewed
Ryan has already reviewed units from Asus and Sapphire on this here site.
Shame you started using DDOF
Shame you started using DDOF in Bioshock Ryan. The game looks so much better with it disabled, not to mention the impact it has on performance numbers.
Well, those numbers are worst
Well, those numbers are worst case scenarios for extreme graphics. Happily, as a user, you can disable it and get a performance boost with your setup!
I’m kind of curious as to why
I’m kind of curious as to why I can find 270 boards with 4GB and 280s seem stuck at 3GB.
The 270s use a 256 bit bus,
The 270s use a 256 bit bus, so they can cram 4 GB of memory on them. The 280 has a 384 bit bus, so to go above 3 GB they need to use 6 GB. That is much more expensive than they feel that most users will go for, so they keep them at 3 GB. Plus, the 280s are already overpriced with just 3 GB right now! Someone really didn't figure out this demand thing…
great review Josh. After
great review Josh. After reading this, I’m convinced that miners are responsible for every known world problem. I mean all of them, including excessive cow flatulence!
They have ruined my upgrade plans for the time being. :/
thanks for the review.
Damn those miners! At least
Damn those miners! At least you can get the R9 270x at a decent price… but yeah, no 280X anywhere near the promised $299.
Is it me or are the graph
Is it me or are the graph numbers switched like the min FPS To high and the avg FPS to low on the Unigine Heaven benchmarks.
LOL, yup! Obviously I
LOL, yup! Obviously I transposed the numbers. Just pretend Min is Avg. and Avg. is Min!
I bought a Gigabyte Windforce
I bought a Gigabyte Windforce R9 270X last November. Having upgraded from an MSI GTX460 with only 768MB of video memory, the 270X was a fantastic deal!
The GTX760 might be the performance equivalent for the 270X, but the price point is mush closer to the older GTX660 here in Japan. Video cards are priced fairly higher than the US. nVidia cards in particular are pricey. When I bought my car a MSI TwinFrozer GTX660 was going for around $200, while the Gigabyte Windforce 270X was only slightly more at $225. Most of the GTX760s that I saw were going for around $370 to $400.
Yeah, that’s a pretty steep
Yeah, that's a pretty steep increase in price as compared to performance on the R9 270X. The 270X is still probably the best overall deal in the market for what you get.
Makes me glad I got the HD
Makes me glad I got the HD 7870 for $120 after rebate over a month ago. Not sure if I can bring myself to get the 270X at current prices.
Glad I was able to grab the
Glad I was able to grab the Asus R9 280x DC2T for my new build before the rush. Snuck it out of Newegg beginning of December for $319…before the gouging began.
Love it.
It certainly is a nice card.
It certainly is a nice card. Good job on grabbing it before the insanity hit.
Notice the dif in the fans on
Notice the dif in the fans on the 280X other than the actual card size and such…. Put that on the cooling on the 270X and you could no doubt O.C. more. Gotsa LOVE ASUS….!!!! I do.
hello everybody, sorry for my
hello everybody, sorry for my english i am french
i have a lot of problem with asus r9 280x directcu 2 top artifact game freeze and stop and return in windows and i dont understand why if someone know about please tell me
thanks