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 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.
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.
At the rear, 2 DVI, a HDMI and DisplayPort and with the XFX cutout on the PCI-E bracket.
Here’s my GPU-Z capture of the card.
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
*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
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
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
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
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.