XFX Radeon R9 380X DD BLACK EDITION OC Graphics Card Review

The latest and very likely to be the very last of AMD’s R9-300 series GPU to be released is the R9 380X, supposedly the spiritual successor of the R9 280X but with more RAM. In fact the R9 380X isn’t of the same chip as the Tahiti XT based R9 280 cards but it uses Tonga chip like the ones on the R9 285.

XFX Radeon R9 380X DD BLACK EDITION OC Graphics Card Review

XFX Radeon R9 380X DD BLACK EDITION OC is a card with twin fan and it is pre-overclocked on the core from 970Mhz to 1030Mhz.

From the top you’ll see silver colored heatpipes and no PCI-E power connector as it’s placed towards the front-end of the PCB.

XFX Radeon R9 380X DD BLACK EDITION OC Graphics Card Review

Here’s the view from the front, it has 2x 6-pin PCI-E power connector and that allows the card a maximum power draw of 225W.

XFX Radeon R9 380X DD BLACK EDITION OC Graphics Card Review

At the rear, 2 DVI, a HDMI and DisplayPort and with the XFX cutout on the PCI-E bracket.

XFX Radeon R9 380X DD BLACK EDITION OC Graphics Card Review

Here’s my GPU-Z capture of the card.

XFX Radeon R9 380X DD BLACK EDITION OC Graphics Card Review

More details at the official product page

Overclocking

I managed to boost the card up to 1080 Mhz on core and 1525Mhz (6100Mhz) on memory but the framerate gains weren’t impressive, barely a frame added to Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark and barely 2 frames gained in Bioshock Infinite.

Clocking it further up to 1130Mhz and I couldn’t complete Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark.

Benchmarks

Unigine Heaven 4.0

Heaven 4.0
*NOTE : Details are set to maximum.

Card 1080p (avg)
XFX Radeon R9 380X 38
PowerColor R9 390 56
Nvidia GTX 970 4GB (Reference) 54
Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) 32
ASUS GTX 960 4GB Turbo 33

Metro Last Light

Heaven 4.0

Card 1080p (avg)
XFX Radeon R9 380X 58
PowerColor R9 390 78
Nvidia GTX 970 4GB (Reference) 80
Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) 53
ASUS GTX 960 4GB Turbo 55

Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite
Settings are at
2 – UltraDX11_DDOF | 2 – Custom | 1 – 16:9 | 4 – FullHD / 4K

Card 1080p (avg)
XFX Radeon R9 380X 88
PowerColor R9 390 111
Nvidia GTX 970 4GB (Reference) 112
Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) 73
ASUS GTX 960 4GB Turbo 73

Shadow of Mordor

Heaven 4.0
Settings : Set to ULTRA, V-sync off.

Card 1080p (avg)
XFX Radeon R9 380X 67
PowerColor R9 390 92
Nvidia GTX 970 4GB (Reference) 71
Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) 42
ASUS GTX 960 4GB Turbo 52

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V
Settings : Every option to the MAX setting available.

Card 1080p (avg)
XFX Radeon R9 380X 25
PowerColor R9 390 39
Nvidia GTX 970 4GB (Reference) 37
Nvidia GTX 960 2GB (Reference) 23
ASUS GTX 960 4GB Turbo 25.3

Temperature

Furmark Burn-in Test was used to stress the card. Fan settings are at Auto. Room set to ~25c.

Card Idle(°C) Load (°C)
XFX Radeon R9 380X 38 71
XFX Radeon R9 380X (Full RPM) 37 67

The fan hovers at around 30% on AUTO settings where the noise level is silent.

Power Consumption

The stress was done with Furmark Burn-in Test. Power consumption reading was taken from the watt-meter, actual power draw by the entire system from the wall point. I’m using an FSP Aurum S 700W with 90% efficiency and the estimated system power draw (CPU, not including GPU) during Furmark test is 60w.

Card XFX Radeon R9 380X
Furmark Burn-in 262
Estimated Actual System Draw 235
Estimated Card Power Draw 175

The Verdict

The XFX Radeon R9 380X DD BLACK EDITION OC US$220, unfortunately this card is not to be available in Malaysia (Yup, we do not have XFX cards here!).

At that price point it overs between 2GB and 4GB Nvidia GTX 960 cards and given the performance is often slightly better, the XFX Radeon R9 380X DD BLACK EDITION OC offers excellent value for money. Note how it performs just as good and sometimes even better than 4GB variants of GTX 960 cards that are factory overclocked.

goldfries recommended