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

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

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

*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

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

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.