AMD Radeon R9 270 in CrossFireX mode – A Worthy Setup?

I did an R7 260X CrossfireX analysis not too long ago, it wasn’t worth the setup.

The R9 270 on the other hand, does seem like it could be a setup that’s worthy of consideration.

Test Setup

Processor Intel Core i5 2500K @ 4.2ghz
RAM Avexir Core Series 8GB DDR3-1600
Motherboard MSI Z77A-G45
Driver AMD Catalyst 13.11

Benchmark

Here we go!

Metro 2033

Metro 2033

Card 1080p (avg)
Sapphire R9 270 CFX 66
ASUS Radeon R9 270 36
ASUS Radeon R9 280X 76.5
Sapphire R7 260X 39.0
CFX R7 260X 43.5
MSI GTX 760 55.5

*Strange but it is lower than R7 260X. Looks like I’ll be testing it again to confirm.

Unigine Heaven 4.0

Heaven 4.0

Card 1080p (avg)
Sapphire R9 270 CFX 74.7
ASUS Radeon R9 270 38.9
ASUS Radeon R9 280X 59.5
Sapphire R7 260X 25.8
CFX R7 260X 48.8
MSI GTX 760 45.2

Resident Evil 6

Resident Evil 6
*Full HD at 1920×1080 – pardon me for the wrong screen resolution in the shot above.

Card 1080p (score)
Sapphire R9 270 CFX 13072
ASUS Radeon R9 270 7954
ASUS Radeon R9 280X (13.11) 11441
Sapphire R7 260X 6138
CFX R7 260X 10142
MSI GTX 760 9677

Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2

Scene Card 1080p (avg)
Dark Tower Sapphire R9 270 CFX 160.68
ASUS Radeon R9 270 88.22
ASUS Radeon R9 280X 121.90
Sapphire R7 260X 56.8
CFX R7 260X 112.12
MSI GTX 760 98.32
Desert Sunrise Sapphire R9 270 CFX 180.95
ASUS Radeon R9 270 118.46
ASUS Radeon R9 280X 153.28
Sapphire R7 260X 78.33
CFX R7 260X 149.18
MSI GTX 760 118.76
Concrete Jungle Sapphire R9 270 CFX 88.41
ASUS Radeon R9 270 71.92
ASUS Radeon R9 280X 87.42
Sapphire R7 260X 47.64
CFX R7 260X 73.18
MSI GTX 760 59.62

Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs

Card Score
Sapphire R9 270 CFX 66.00
ASUS Radeon R9 270 36.6
Sapphire HD 7970 Ghz Edition 45.5
CFX R7 260X 43.5
MSI GTX 760 55.8

*I didn’t manage to test the R9 280X on this benchmark.

3DMark

Default settings

Card Score
Sapphire R9 270 CFX 8291
ASUS Radeon R9 270 5119
ASUS Radeon R9 280X (13.11) 7513
MSI GTX 760 5002

Analysis

At the time of this article, the price of the cards are as follows.
– SAPPHIRE R9 270 2GB D5 Dual-X is priced around RM 680
– SAPPHIRE R9 280X 3GB D5 Dual-X is priced around RM 1100
– SAPPHIRE R9 280X 3GB D5 VAPOR-X OC is priced around RM 1200
– SAPPHIRE R9 280X 3GB D5 TOXIC OC is priced around RM 1300

The R9 270 Crossfire does perform admirably, in some cases reaching 10% to 20% greater performance than the R9 280X.

2 units of R9 270 costs approximately RM 1400 that’s about 27% more than the RM 1100 R9 280X card, 7% more than the RM 1300 R9 280X.

In terms of power consumption, the R9 270X only requires a 6-pin PCI-E each but each card consumes some 175w (or more) which comes to around 350w+ TDP on full load, which is around 40% more than the R9 280X on load.

Overall, the card setup is a worthy consideration if you have the power supply to go. The cost is far reduced if you’re already an R9 270X user and your next card is a used unit. The last point to consider is heat – which I don’t think is an issue unless both cards are running full load all the time and the casing has poor ventilation.

Keep in mind that the performance depends greatly on how the game scales. As you can see from the benchmarks, games like Metro 2033 shows the CFX R9 270 setup trails the R9 280X while games like Sleeping Dogs show some 33% performance boost.

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2 Comments

  1. What are the chances of the R9 270 hitting 120 FPS in games like Borderlands 2, Assassin’s Creed (III, IV) and Sleeping Dogs, under medium settings, against single card solution, GTX 770?

  2. As in R9 270 CFX vs single GTX 770

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