# ASUS Radeon R9 380X Strix 4GB



## W1zzard (Nov 19, 2015)

Today, AMD launches their Radeon R9 380X, which is built on the company's fully unlocked Tonga silicon with 2048 shaders. In terms of price and performance, the card sits right in the middle of the GTX 960 and GTX 970, where it is supposed to capture market share from the green team.

*Show full review*


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## RCoon (Nov 19, 2015)

So it's basically a 280X? (In terms of performance)

Also love the new chart design.


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## VulkanBros (Nov 19, 2015)

the xx x xx does mean?



 


ASUS is using the same design on their R9 380X as on their 380. On the back you will find a nice metal backplate. Dimensions of the card* are xx cm x xx cm.*


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## W1zzard (Nov 19, 2015)

VulkanBros said:


> the xx x xx does mean?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


forgot to measure  fixed


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## mab1376 (Nov 19, 2015)

RCoon said:


> So it's basically a 280X? (In terms of performance)
> 
> Also love the new chart design.



I was maybe considering this as an upgrade from my 280x, but it seems like the 280x performs better in BF4 at 1080p.

Oh well.


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## Dammeron (Nov 19, 2015)

I just can't get over the final notes here: "Price/performance not as good as other cards in this price-segment", "Not as energy efficient as NVIDIA Maxwell cards", "Lack of HDMI 2.0"... and yet the card scores 9.1/10, which is a fantastic note. For me it's a mediocre card, if it eats more and performs worse than GTX 970. I wouldn't give it more, than 7, maybe 7.5, considering it's shortcomings.

The same is with e.g. coolers' reviews - expensive, yet barely acceptable AiO WC in therms of performance, and the note is still over 8/10...


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## Enterprise24 (Nov 19, 2015)

Basically 380X is 7970/280X that got update to GCN 1.2 + improve Tessellation performance + cripple some bandwidth + increase VRAM to 4GB
So no change in term of performance when compare to 7970/280X.


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## Firedrops (Nov 19, 2015)

I think 4GB VRAM is important at 1080p, for high-res texture mods. It's not that common, but it's still a huge boon in such cases, and I think it deserve mentioning, although understandably its not detected in your standard review processes with the stock games.


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## W1zzard (Nov 19, 2015)

Firedrops said:


> I think 4GB VRAM is important at 1080p, for high-res texture mods. It's not that common, but it's still a huge boon in such cases, and I think it deserve mentioning, although understandably its not detected in your standard review processes with the stock games.


Still playing Skyrim? 



Dammeron said:


> I just can't get over the final notes here: "Price/performance not as good as other cards in this price-segment", "Not as energy efficient as NVIDIA Maxwell cards", "Lack of HDMI 2.0"... and yet the card scores 9.1/10, which is a fantastic note. For me it's a mediocre card, if it eats more and performs worse than GTX 970. I wouldn't give it more, than 7, maybe 7.5, considering it's shortcomings.


But you can't buy GTX 970 if you have only $230. Personally I'd probably buy a used R9 290, unless you want better noise/heat, which is where R9 380X comes into play.

If you have more than $300, definitely get a GTX 970, which I think I made clear in my review, we also discussed it internally earlier:


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## Assimilator (Nov 19, 2015)

Typo on the conclusion page: "R*8* 380X".

Hopefully this will lead to a big cut in GTX 970 prices just before Christmas. nVIDIA will be hoping to clear inventory before Pascal launches and I'm certain they'll still be making a nice profit off Maxwell chips even if they discount them by $20 or even further. GTX 970 at $270 would make the R9 290 obsolete, GTX 970 at $250 would make pretty much every other card obsolete.


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## Moofachuka (Nov 19, 2015)

makes me think my current 7970 xfire purchased a few years back were still very worthwhile... I like it


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## rtwjunkie (Nov 19, 2015)

One please!!!


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## rruff (Nov 19, 2015)

Assimilator said:


> Hopefully this will lead to a big cut in GTX 970 prices just before Christmas. nVIDIA will be hoping to clear inventory before Pascal launches and I'm certain they'll still be making a nice profit off Maxwell chips even if they discount them by $20 or even further. GTX 970 at $270 would make the R9 290 obsolete, GTX 970 at $250 would make pretty much every other card obsolete.



The GTX 970s have already been as low as $230 recently, and I'm sure next week we'll see many around that price. And it's still ~35-40% faster than this R9 380x. 

The 380x is only 10% faster than a R9 380 so it doesn't exactly fill that gaping hole between the GTX 960, R9 380 and the GTX 970, R9 390. If it is priced accordingly though (<$180 on sale) it makes sense. If you have a 1440p monitor it's the cheapest card that kinda does ok.


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## rtwjunkie (Nov 19, 2015)

rruff said:


> The GTX 970s have already been as low as $230 recently, and I'm sure next week we'll see many around that price. And it's still ~35-40% faster than this R9 380x.
> 
> The 380x is only 10% faster than a R9 380 so it doesn't exactly fill that gaping hole between the GTX 960, R9 380 and the GTX 970, R9 390. If it is priced accordingly though (<$180 on sale) it makes sense. If you have a 1440p monitor it's the cheapest card that kinda does ok.



I need to shop where you do!  Every 970 I have seen on sale you are lucky if it is marked down for a few days to $290.  If you're even"luckier" they have a $20 rebate, which means by the time you see it you have basically paid $290.  

All GTX 960's are going to 4GB, and are nearly all selling in the $215 to $225 range.  This thing blows the 960 away, so therefore, price is great!


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## EarthDog (Nov 19, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> I need to shop where you do!  Every 970 I have seen on sale you are lucky if it is marked down for a few days to $290.  If you're even"luckier" they have a $20 rebate, which means by the time you see it you have basically paid $290.
> 
> All GTX 960's are going to 4GB, and are nearly all selling in the $215 to $225 range.  This thing blows the 960 away, so therefore, price is great!


PREACH brother!!!

Good thing TPU has no limit on thanks (DUMB IDEA... makes thanks useless!), or I would have run out on your posts today about this card, LOL!


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## IamEzio (Nov 19, 2015)

Is it only me that thinks its wierd that the gtx960 has the same performane of the 270x at 1080p in the performance summery charts ?


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## rruff (Nov 19, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> I need to shop where you do!  Every 970 I have seen on sale you are lucky if it is marked down for a few days to $290.  If you're even"luckier" they have a $20 rebate, which means by the time you see it you have basically paid $290.
> 
> All GTX 960's are going to 4GB, and are nearly all selling in the $215 to $225 range.  This thing blows the 960 away, so therefore, price is great!



You need to keep up to date on the deal sites. This is the season. I know where you can get a MSI GTX 960 2GB right now for $126 after $20 rebate. Interested? R9 380 Strix was as low as $118 AR. And forget 4GB on these unless you have some odd requirements. I checked the benchmarks and it isn't worth the extra money. Buy a better card if you want better performance.


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## Luka KLLP (Nov 19, 2015)

Hmm...

Thought that this was gonna be a GTX970 killer, but it loses even in performance/dollar.

I guess it's a nice card, but once again I'm let down


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## rtwjunkie (Nov 19, 2015)

EarthDog said:


> PREACH brother!!!
> 
> Good thing TPU has no limit on thanks (DUMB IDEA... makes thanks useless!), or I would have run out on your posts today about this card, LOL!



LOL, too funny!  Guess you can tell I found an AMD card I can get excited about?   Perfect replacement for my 760.  Now...must find some green stuff...


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## newtekie1 (Nov 19, 2015)

This is good, I like this card.  Not much more than the GTX960, but a good bump in performance.  Hopefully this brings prices down.  Though it does mean my GTX970s are probably going to start loosing value very quickly.

Maybe this means we'll see a GTX960Ti in the near future to compete, and definitely some lower prices.


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## EarthDog (Nov 19, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> Now...must find some green stuff...


You talking money or..............................


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## rtwjunkie (Nov 19, 2015)

EarthDog said:


> You talking money or..............................



LOL! Money.


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## geon2k2 (Nov 19, 2015)

I have the R9 380 (without x) version of this card and everything looks identical, box, pcb, everything. Its a good card, but please check the VRM temps. On my card it goes to >120 degrees Celsius in Furmark, while on Heaven loop it sits on 100 Celsius. While gaming occasionally reaches 100, but in average it's a bit under. All this on stock, not even the OC profile which comes OOB.

I contacted Asus and they told me they have high quality components ... yala yala yala, and its perfectly fine for this model ... go figure. Somehow, as there was actually nothing wrong with it and it was working perfectly, I did not return it.

Anyway for this reason, I'd definitely not give it the "Highly Recommended" mark, at least not to this Asus. R9 380X is great and I saw on other brands, like Saphire a solution which had VRMs touching the big heatsink so for sure they didn't had this problem.


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## Assimilator (Nov 19, 2015)

Luka KLLP said:


> Hmm...
> 
> Thought that this was gonna be a GTX970 killer, but it loses even in performance/dollar.
> 
> I guess it's a nice card, but once again I'm let down



There was never any chance of a fully-enabled Tonga beating a GTX 970.


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## GhostRyder (Nov 19, 2015)

rruff said:


> You need to keep up to date on the deal sites. This is the season. I know where you can get a MSI GTX 960 2GB right now for $126 after $20 rebate. Interested? R9 380 Strix was as low as $118 AR. And forget 4GB on these unless you have some odd requirements. I checked the benchmarks and it isn't worth the extra money. Buy a better card if you want better performance.


Send me to the sites your on, I cannot find anything close to those prices even with rebates!



Dammeron said:


> I just can't get over the final notes here: "Price/performance not as good as other cards in this price-segment", "Not as energy efficient as NVIDIA Maxwell cards", "Lack of HDMI 2.0"... and yet the card scores 9.1/10, which is a fantastic note. For me it's a mediocre card, if it eats more and performs worse than GTX 970. I wouldn't give it more, than 7, maybe 7.5, considering it's shortcomings.
> 
> The same is with e.g. coolers' reviews - expensive, yet barely acceptable AiO WC in therms of performance, and the note is still over 8/10...


It also costs less and has 4gb of full speed ram while running cool which is why it got points...Plus it also depends on what the negative consequences are for the card for the point deductions which by the looks of it were considered minor infractions.



newtekie1 said:


> This is good, I like this card.  Not much more than the GTX960, but a good bump in performance.  Hopefully this brings prices down.  Though it does mean my GTX970s are probably going to start loosing value very quickly.
> 
> Maybe this means we'll see a GTX960Ti in the near future to compete, and definitely some lower prices.


Only if they release the GTX 960 OEM or similar, would be nice to see something like that.

Not a bad card if I do say so myself, though its kinda fitting how every other AMD card has been lately which is just ~10% higher than the slightly locked variant which is unfortunate.  I also wish it overclocked a bit more but maybe its limited to the sample...


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## rruff (Nov 19, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> Send me to the sites your on, I cannot find anything close to those prices even with rebates!



Search Jet.com and use 20NOW for 20% off if you are a 1st time buyer, or SHOPWITH15 for 15% off if you aren't, and waive free returns and use debit for extra off.  ASUS and MSI have $20 rebates on this level of card in Nov. I ordered a EVGA GTX 950 for $108 a couple days ago, no rebate. Their prices fluctuate, so it's best to keep checking. 

Also look on slickdeals/hotdeals/computer. There is currently a Zotac GTX 970 on ebay sold via Newegg for $250 and has a game you can flip easily for $30. No rebate.


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## Luka KLLP (Nov 19, 2015)

Assimilator said:


> There was never any chance of a fully-enabled Tonga beating a GTX 970.


True, I guess I kinda overhyped this card


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## Tsukiyomi91 (Nov 19, 2015)

for the 1st time I'm seeing AMD's refreshed card in a new limelight. This card is exceptionally decent. peak usage of under 240W means that AMD got the design right this time, though the use of Elpida instead of Samsung (aka Hynix) is just a small setback to what it's suppose to be a very highly competitive sub-$250 class pixel pusher.


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## geon2k2 (Nov 19, 2015)

mab1376 said:


> I was maybe considering this as an upgrade from my 280x, but it seems like the 280x performs better in BF4 at 1080p.



This was not the purpose of this card, even when they launched 285, the goal was to get pretty much the same performance as previous 280 generation, that's why the name was in the middle of those 2, while having lower production cost. And this card does exactly that, gets the same performance with 256 bus, instead of 384 bit, which is a good achievement from AMD. Also brings more recent GCN, with HW decode for 4k, Freesync, True Audio and other things.


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## SonicZap (Nov 19, 2015)

It looks like a very good card, probably the best AMD release for a while despite low-ish efficiency. It doesn't get close to the GTX 970, but has no problem beating the GTX 960, and it's also decently faster than the closest AMD card (R9 380). Definitely captures its price range of 200-250$.

It'll be interesting to see if Nvidia responds to this card, it's likely going to be popular if AMD is just able to produce enough of these. Too bad I already finished Witcher 3 so I don't need a new card right now  Otherwise this would be my choice.


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## eodeo (Nov 19, 2015)

I love the new look! Had to log in to chime in.

Also, Toms Hardware says that adding a second monitor does not increase 13w idle power draw. Which one of you is wrong?
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-r9-380x-nitro,4361-6.html

_At idle, AMD's Radeon R9 380X consumes approximately 13W, and this number stays essentially the same when two monitors are connected._


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## W1zzard (Nov 19, 2015)

eodeo said:


> I love the new look! Had to log in to chime in.
> 
> Also, Toms Hardware says that adding a second monitor does not increase 13w idle power draw. Which one of you is wrong?
> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-r9-380x-nitro,4361-6.html
> ...


Maybe unchanged if resolution and timings are exactly the same


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## Steevo (Nov 19, 2015)

So 7970/280X performance with 33% lower power draw. 


Which is much faster than the 960..... and yet assholes still whine about their mange not getting green cream filling.


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## rruff (Nov 20, 2015)

Steevo said:


> Which is much faster than the 960..... and yet assholes still whine about their mange not getting green cream filling.



The 380x beats the 960, but by very little. Comparing pseudo base clocks, the 380x is 14% ahead (note the listing for the 960 in this test is incorrect. look at previous tests). I just checked all 6 of TPU's 960 tests, and on average *they OC to a performance level that is 20% above base. *The 280x Strix in this article OC'd to 14% above, which seems typical of AMD cards lately. They push them closer to their max out the door, while the Maxwell cards OC well above base clocks. So *in real life the 380x is about ~7% faster. *


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## Steevo (Nov 20, 2015)

rruff said:


> The 380x beats the 960, but by very little. Comparing pseudo base clocks, the 380x is 14% ahead (note the listing for the 960 in this test is incorrect. look at previous tests). _I just checked all 6 of TPU's 960 tests, and on average _*they OC to a performance level that is 20% above base. *"Actual 3D performance gained from overclocking is 18.3%." EXCEPT THEY DIDN"T!!!   The 280x Strix in this article OC'd to 14% above, which seems typical of AMD cards lately. They push them closer to their max out the door, while the Maxwell cards OC well above base clocks. So *in real life the 380x is about ~7% faster. *


Do you really feel the need for attention by making shit up?

Maybe we didn't read the same review, or see the same graph? Here it is in case you missed it, since it was hidden in the back of the review.

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/R9_380X_Strix/images/perfrel_1920_1080.png

25% is only a little huh? The number of users that don't overclock is very high compared to our community that does. My brother doesn't. But still, overclocked to overclocked the AMD card wins. So lets see, thats a win out of the box, a win when overclocked, and can be had for less than a 960.... so. **EDIT The prices have dropped on Newegg for a 960 to $169.00....**


http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_960_OC/30.html

14.4% performance increase, still well behind the 25%, plus the 9% overclocking http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/R9_380X_Strix/26.html provided, making it a whopping 19.6% faster still..... But I get it, maths are hard yo....

No go drink your green juice from the phallic bottle you love in some other corner.

This also doesn't take into account any voltage tuning you can do, where the 380X responds well to voltage scaling.


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## rruff (Nov 20, 2015)

Steevo said:


> 25% is only a little huh? The number of users that don't overclock is very high compared to our community that does. My brother doesn't. But still, overclocked to overclocked the AMD card wins. So lets see, thats a win out of the box, a win when overclocked, and can be had for less than a 960.... so.



Maybe you didn't read my post. The numbers listed for the 960 are incorrect. And the MSRP for the 380x is currently $30 higher than the 960. You can buy a 960 for $126 right now if you want.


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## xorbe (Nov 20, 2015)

It has been noted around the web that TPU's chart seems to suddenly show the 960 a bit lower, tied with 270X.  That's what rruff is getting at.  I'm too lazy to verify this though.  I did notice that other reviews didn't paint the 380X as 29% ahead of the 960 on average.

I really hate boost and boost min specs, and all the wiggle room it has granted reviewers to play with the numbers.


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## Steevo (Nov 20, 2015)

Well, lets use Tom's Hardware 380X review and one of TPU's 960 reviews.

960 in Shadow of Mordor 44FPS Avg /TPU 47FPS AVG (New review 960 gets 49)
960 in BF4 51FPS Avg/TPU 51FPS Avg   (New review 960 gets 50FPS)
960 in Tomb Raider 61FPS Avg/ TPU 39.1 (New review does not include this game)
960 in Bioshock Infinite 75FPS Avg/ TPU 93.9 FPS Avg (New review does not include this game)


Wait.... Its with 4X AA.... when the TPU reviews show the 960 failing, indicating a lack of bandwidth...... in the Toms's hardware review on Bioshock they used ultra presets.



The biggest inconsistency I can find is GTA 5. Remove that one game and the performance is still very close to the same. If you read the notes, W1zz is pushing the highest quality settings in every game, and that is what causes the 960 to choke, lack of Vmem and bandwidth in GTA5...

"

All video card results are obtained on this exact system with exactly the same configuration.

*All games are set to their highest quality setting unless indicated otherwise.*

AA and AF are applied via in-game settings, not via the driver's control panel.
Each game is tested at these screen resolutions:

1600x900: Common resolution for most smaller flatscreens and laptops today (17" - 19").

1920x1080: Most common widescreen resolution for larger displays (22" - 26").

2560x1440: Highest possible 16:9 resolution for commonly available displays (27"-32").

3840x2160: 4K Ultra HD resolution, available on the latest high-end monitors.


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## rruff (Nov 20, 2015)

Steevo said:


> Well, lets use Tom's Hardware 380X review and one of TPU's 960 reviews.



What are those numbers comparing exactly? You are showing 960 vs 960... for what reason?


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## Steevo (Nov 20, 2015)

rruff said:


> What are those numbers comparing exactly? You are showing 960 vs 960... for what reason?




did you bother to read Xorbe's comment?


I provided exactly what he was "too lazy to verify this though".


TPU's numbers are spot on, other review sites fuck with settings to make sure that most cards end up performing the same, showing no weakness between them.


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## manofthem (Nov 20, 2015)

Great review as always. The cooler on this card is beast, 29dba at load!  

Also I do like the newer look of the graphs, nice and classy


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## xorbe (Nov 20, 2015)

See I actually have an issue with those results, because people with $165-$199 cards realistically won't be playing on ultra settings.  The benchmark results aren't real-world usable.  But I realize it is a lot of time to test X games * Y cards * Z settings, so what'cha gonna do.


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## Steevo (Nov 20, 2015)

xorbe said:


> See I actually have an issue with those results, because people with $165-$199 cards realistically won't be playing on ultra settings.  The benchmark results aren't real-world usable.  But I realize it is a lot of time to test X games * Y cards * Z settings, so what'cha gonna do.




Then it needs to be said that a 960 is NOT a 1080 card, its less than, and for a whole $30 more you CAN have a 1080 card with more of everything, memory, performance, overclocks. And your videos/media look better too.


On that same note I could say that since a 380X isn't a 4K card the fact it doesn't have HDMI 2.0 is not a issue so it should have a higher score, like 9.5.


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## rruff (Nov 20, 2015)

Steevo said:


> did you bother to read Xorbe's comment?



Yes I did. Your post is irrelevant though. TPU's 960 numbers on this test don't agree with TPU's 960 numbers on prior tests. It's a typo.


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## rruff (Nov 20, 2015)

Steevo said:


> for a whole $30 more you CAN have a 1080 card with more of everything, memory, performance, overclocks.



Overclocks? Show me. Note that the Sapphire that Tom's tested wouldn't OC at all without throttling.


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## xorbe (Nov 20, 2015)

Steevo said:


> Then it needs to be said that a 960 is NOT a 1080 card



What?  I'm using one at 2560 at reduced settings.  Ultra is for benchmark articles.  Of course the 960 does 1080 fine, now you're just out there.  Not replying to any more troll replies.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (Nov 20, 2015)

I just dun get some ppl who thinks the benches are a little biased... Man, if u wanna see how good is the card, you would already stress test it with each game at it's highest possible settings as a base to see how good a pixel pusher goes, both stock & OCed. Also, the 960 is a budget card that replaces the 750Ti due to it's shortcomings (lack of 6-pin connector, capped power limits etc), so it's not a surprise to see the R9 380X to be a faster card than the 960 across most benches at popular resolution e.g 1080p, of course it can't beat the GTX970 which is still a killer card up to 1440p & much more expensive than the 380X.


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## SNM (Nov 20, 2015)

So GTX 970 is still topping the list in mid range.....


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## Tsukiyomi91 (Nov 20, 2015)

it's an OP card after all... for $290. Once OCed, it's as fast as a base GTX980.


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## Frick (Nov 20, 2015)

rruff said:


> You can buy a 960 for $126 right now if you want.



Irrelevant. The only sane way to compare prices is either MSRP or go to someone like newegg.com and disregard the rebates and deals.

The funny thing is people will still buy high end 960's instead of ... well anything really.


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## Steevo (Nov 20, 2015)

xorbe said:


> What?  I'm using one at 2560 at reduced settings.  Ultra is for benchmark articles.  Of course the 960 does 1080 fine, now you're just out there.  Not replying to any more troll replies.





So a 960 owner who comes to threadcrap about a card that whips their cards ass, then clearly states they are too lazy to provide proof to backup their claims, and when is provided said proof goes off on a tangent isn't trolling? Trolling would be me telling you my 7970 kicks your card square in the balls for any reason other than it really does, and it cost me less. 


The point of benchmarking is to see where the strengths and weaknesses are, not to prop up a flacid dick so anyone can feel better and get some confirmation bias feels by adjusting games to make sure it always looks the best. By having all the games at their highest settings W1zz promotes a few core values, first, the unwillingness to compromise on quality, the second to reinforce a even and level playing field, third to help push the envelope on hardware/software fronts that benefit all of us. 

A shit attitude of "well its runs good on medium or low settings" is equal to "Well it looks as good as a potato box 4" and defeats the purpose of an enthusiast site, where we set high benchmark today to become the standard for tomorrow.


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## MagnuTron (Nov 20, 2015)

geon2k2 said:


> I have the R9 380 (without x) version of this card and everything looks identical, box, pcb, everything. Its a good card, but please check the VRM temps. On my card it goes to >120 degrees Celsius in Furmark, while on Heaven loop it sits on 100 Celsius. While gaming occasionally reaches 100, but in average it's a bit under. All this on stock, not even the OC profile which comes OOB.
> 
> I contacted Asus and they told me they have high quality components ... yala yala yala, and its perfectly fine for this model ... go figure. Somehow, as there was actually nothing wrong with it and it was working perfectly, I did not return it.
> 
> Anyway for this reason, I'd definitely not give it the "Highly Recommended" mark, at least not to this Asus. R9 380X is great and I saw on other brands, like Saphire a solution which had VRMs touching the big heatsink so for sure they didn't had this problem.



I just built a 380 machine for a customer yesterday. Sadly the cards dont have dual bios. Otherwise a flash upgrade would of been a cool thing to try out huh?

EDIT: Typo0z


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## W1zzard (Nov 20, 2015)

rruff said:


> TPU's 960 numbers on this test don't agree with TPU's 960 numbers on prior tests.


Two games have huge performance issues on Windows 10 on 2 GB NVIDIA cards.
GTA V and Watch Dogs.
This seems to be an NVIDIA driver issue, on Windows 7 everything was fine, using the same settings.
AMD 2 GB cards are unaffected too.


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## Cataclysm_ZA (Nov 20, 2015)

xorbe said:


> It has been noted around the web that TPU's chart seems to suddenly show the 960 a bit lower, tied with 270X.  That's what rruff is getting at.  I'm too lazy to verify this though.





rruff said:


> Yes I did. Your post is irrelevant though. TPU's 960 numbers on this test don't agree with TPU's 960 numbers on prior tests. It's a typo.



Have you guys ever considered that because W1zzard re-does the benchmarks for all the supported GPUs when new drivers come out, that the numbers will change over time to reflect how much difference the drivers can make? Here's an example of the GTX 960's position relative to the Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP:






Here W1zzard's using a Skylake build, Geforce WHQL 358.50, Catalyst 15.9.1 beta, Windows 10. The grouping is similar for the MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning review, though the results taken with the Zotac review show a 1% performance gain for both cards. This could be through various games getting patches to improve performance, for example, or because Windows 10 in the Zotac review could be build 10586, which includes the Speed Shift optimisations for Skylake processors. 

Now, compare that to the results taken when the last GTX 950 was reviewed:






This time, he's using a Haswell build, Windows 7 SP1, Geforce WHQL 353.06, 355.65, and CCC 15.5 beta

By his own admission, under the listing for the test system, he says: "Benchmark scores in other reviews are only comparable when this exact same configuration is used." That's why the results suddenly show the GTX 960 tying with the R7 270X, because not only are the Windows 10 drivers showing a performance boost, there's also a faster CPU in there, different memory speeds, and a different OS.


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## newtekie1 (Nov 20, 2015)

rruff said:


> Yes I did. Your post is irrelevant though. TPU's 960 numbers on this test don't agree with TPU's 960 numbers on prior tests. It's a typo.



No they aren't.  The numbers have changed due to rebenching with a different test setup and different games being added and removed from the test suite.  And the new drivers introduced quite a few driver bugs for the 960.  So it's overall performance went down.  This happens pretty often, AMD had issues similar to this before too.


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## mab1376 (Nov 20, 2015)

geon2k2 said:


> This was not the purpose of this card, even when they launched 285, the goal was to get pretty much the same performance as previous 280 generation, that's why the name was in the middle of those 2, while having lower production cost. And this card does exactly that, gets the same performance with 256 bus, instead of 384 bit, which is a good achievement from AMD. Also brings more recent GCN, with HW decode for 4k, Freesync, True Audio and other things.



Just seems confusing to consumers. Seems like it would be the next generation; not a 280xv2


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## Cataclysm_ZA (Nov 20, 2015)

mab1376 said:


> Just seems confusing to consumers. Seems like it would be the next generation; not a 280xv2



It's a bit like the HD5870-HD6870 switch. A slight regression in performance with better power savings, yet the model number implied that it was faster.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (Nov 20, 2015)

Steevo said:


> So a 960 owner who comes to threadcrap about a card that whips their cards ass, then clearly states they are too lazy to provide proof to backup their claims, and when is provided said proof goes off on a tangent isn't trolling? Trolling would be me telling you my 7970 kicks your card square in the balls for any reason other than it really does, and it cost me less.
> 
> 
> The point of benchmarking is to see where the strengths and weaknesses are, not to prop up a flacid dick so anyone can feel better and get some confirmation bias feels by adjusting games to make sure it always looks the best. By having all the games at their highest settings W1zz promotes a few core values, first, the unwillingness to compromise on quality, the second to reinforce a even and level playing field, third to help push the envelope on hardware/software fronts that benefit all of us.
> ...



True. Also, no one in their right mind would say that a sub $200 card has the ability to cook a much more expensive competitor (e.g GTX970 G1 Gaming) that sports a beefier bus width, faster chip & consumes a lot more power with increased power limit while built on a custom PCB + cooler to let the chip go further than the reference model for a few extra bucks. Benches done by W1zz is considered as even, no holds barred & BS-free. Results are absolute. Just take in some salt & accept the truth.


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## EarthDog (Nov 20, 2015)

rruff said:


> Are you suggesting that he retests all the old cards in the list when there is a config change?


I believe he does that...


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## Cataclysm_ZA (Nov 20, 2015)

rruff said:


> Are you suggesting that he retests all the old cards in the list when there is a config change? Or that W10 drivers suddenly crippled the GTX 960 relative to everything else?



He's done that for just over a decade, if I'm not mistaken. He once discussed the amount of work that goes into a GPU review on these forums a long time ago. I remember the math worked out to being tied up for three weeks straight of just testing old cards if he didn't have multiple rigs running at the same time to speed things up.

Edit: And yes, Windows 10 drivers are doing something wonky to the 2GB Kepler and Maxwell cards, specifically when it comes to GTA V.


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## rruff (Nov 20, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> Two games have huge performance issues on Windows 10 on 2 GB NVIDIA cards.
> GTA V and Watch Dogs.
> This seems to be an NVIDIA driver issue, on Windows 7 everything was fine, using the same settings.
> AMD 2 GB cards are unaffected too.



Yikes! Do you know any more detail on what exactly is happening? Nvidia really screwed that up...


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## rruff (Nov 20, 2015)

EarthDog said:


> I believe he does that...



Yes, I read his post, so deleted mine.


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## W1zzard (Nov 20, 2015)

Cataclysm_ZA said:


> He's done that for just over a decade, if I'm not mistaken. He once discussed the amount of work that goes into a GPU review on these forums a long time ago. I remember the math worked out to being tied up for three weeks straight of just testing old cards if he didn't have multiple rigs running at the same time to speed things up.


That is correct, I rebench all cards for every iteration of the test system (as indicated by the version number in the test setup header, currently at 40). It's roughly two weeks now for a whole rebench. Using just a single rig, so there are no random deviations



rruff said:


> Yikes! Do you know any more detail on what exactly is happening? Nvidia really screwed that up...


I have no idea, my best guess is it has to do with Windows 10 GPU memory management. But since AMD is not affected, I can't be sure of that


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## rruff (Nov 20, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> I have no idea, my best guess is it has to do with Windows 10 GPU memory management. But since AMD is not affected, I can't be sure of that



Not seeing any mentions of this online, but it sure is worthy of mentioning. Did you try different drivers?

And holy crap, I didn't realize you retested every card! Thought you would just test a couple and scale the rest, for the summary anyway.

Just had another look at the chart you posted above for GTA 5 and the R9 285 is also effected, though not as much as the Nvidia cards.


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## xorbe (Nov 20, 2015)

Okay, so I'm glad I didn't move to Win10, heh.  At least now we know the rest of the story, and why other reviews had different numbers than TPU.

Steevo, click System Specs over there (<-) before flying off the rails next time, pretty please.  Was just casually commenting on the 960 comments, as I'm testing one right now in my godbox system, for one of my HTPC setups.

W1zzard, big thanks for the reviews of course.  I know it takes a lot of time and work, and I read it for free, so I have no room to complain.


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## Casecutter (Nov 20, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> Send me to the sites your on, I cannot find anything close to those prices even with rebates


Well I suppose there's some one off flash, or screwed-up listed price that got by on Jet.com, but that's hardly the norm.  I use the charts from pcpartpicker.com to kind of determine the trends. But correctly there quite a few 380 2Gb and sell-off of 960 2Gb that have been as low as $150 for a PowerColor 380 2Gb working a $20 rebate, while 960's 2Gb have gotten to like $160 -AR leaving 950's high and dry.  



Tsukiyomi91 said:


> Also, the 960 is a budget card that replaces the 750Ti due to it's shortcomings (lack of 6-pin connector, capped power limits etc),


Sorry don't mean to bust your... but the 960's can out as a 760 replacement and a card to capture the older GTX660 crowd or those looking to the R9285  The 750Ti those weren't "shortcomings" those were touted as features when it came out and still are, such a card is in a completely lower rung "entry-gaming".  The 960 was a mid-range for the "sweet spot" for running MOBA games something GTX 750Ti didn't provide in spades. 

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/introducing-the-geforce-gtx-960

As to this 380X well not the boost one would consider from a XT variant but this is the first review. There was more than 10% from a 280-280X if I recall.  So this kind of spells out why AMD held out this long, not good to release a new card when 280X/290 was still abundant in the market space.

That said, would still look at one for someone's new build if I was looking in the next couple months especially if the toss a $20 rebate and a game or two in the mix.


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## N3M3515 (Nov 20, 2015)

This card is very good for the price.
The thing that bugs me is . . . . . .
Why the hell are the gtx 770 and 780 so slow???
The gtx 770 used to be neck and neck with the 7970 GHZ Ed. if not edging it out (and the ghz ed is faster than the 280x!). Now it gets beated by basically a 7950???
And the gtx 780 Ti was always faster than the 290x. Specially at lower resolutions.
Someone please an explanation 
Humansmoke where are you


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## rtwjunkie (Nov 20, 2015)

N3M3515 said:


> This card is very good for the price.
> The thing that bugs me is . . . . . .
> Why the hell are the gtx 770 and 780 so slow???
> The gtx 770 used to be neck and neck with the 7970 GHZ Ed. if not edging it out (and the ghz ed is faster than the 280x!). Now it gets beated by basically a 7950???
> ...



I can help you on that. Nvidia stopped optimizing Kepler with 347.88.  Meanwhile, driver refinement has continued with Maxwells.  We shall see the same thing happen in about 8 to 10 months after Pascal starts supplanting Maxwell sales.


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## xorbe (Nov 20, 2015)

N3M3515 said:


> This card is very good for the price.
> The thing that bugs me is . . . . . .
> Why the hell are the gtx 770 and 780 so slow???
> The gtx 770 used to be neck and neck with the 7970 GHZ Ed. if not edging it out (and the ghz ed is faster than the 280x!). Now it gets beated by basically a 7950???



Driver has Win10 problem for 770/960 at least, that's hidden in the summary chart.  That's what the hubbub above was about.


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## newtekie1 (Nov 20, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> I have no idea, my best guess is it has to do with Windows 10 GPU memory management. But since AMD is not affected, I can't be sure of that



It is very interesting that it just caps the framerate for 2GB cards right at 12FPS, regardless of the card.  Hopefully nVidia gets a handle on this in a future drive update.


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## N3M3515 (Nov 20, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> I can help you on that. Nvidia stopped optimizing Kepler with 347.88.  Meanwhile, driver refinement has continued with Maxwells.  We shall see the same thing happen in about 8 to 10 months after Pascal starts supplanting Maxwell sales.



So gtx 770/780 users are fucked....for new games 
I was so close to buy a gtx 780 used but the difference is nothing...


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## rtwjunkie (Nov 20, 2015)

N3M3515 said:


> So gtx 770/780 users are fucked....for new games
> I was so close to buy a gtx 780 used but the difference is nothing...



In reality, I was using a 780 until 2 months ago.  It did not suffer any in real life gaming use.  Benchmarks like W1zzard's tests are set an an abnormally high standard for uniformity.  The difference is mostly only visible in extreme benchmarks.  You would be fine.


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## xorbe (Nov 20, 2015)

Similarly, 380X + Win10 seems to stumble in Metro Last Light.  The core clock drops down.  I guess this is similar to when nvidia users randomly need to choose "prefer maximum performance" in the control panel for basically the same issue.

http://www.legitreviews.com/sapphire-radeon-r9-380x-nitro-video-card-review_175481/7


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## Fluffmeister (Nov 21, 2015)

Luka KLLP said:


> True, I guess I kinda overhyped this card



No doubt, Tonga is huge compared to the GM206 powered GTX 960, gotta love those margins.


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## EarthDog (Nov 21, 2015)

xorbe said:


> Similarly, 380X + Win10 seems to stumble in Metro Last Light.  The core clock drops down.  I guess this is similar to when nvidia users randomly need to choose "prefer maximum performance" in the control panel for basically the same issue.
> 
> http://www.legitreviews.com/sapphire-radeon-r9-380x-nitro-video-card-review_175481/7


weird.. can't say I noticed that in my review (not published).. let me see if I can capture some data and post it...

EDIT: Disregard.. I somehow missed W10.. we stillare on W7..


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## evilacg (Nov 22, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> Two games have huge performance issues on Windows 10 on 2 GB NVIDIA cards.
> GTA V and Watch Dogs.
> This seems to be an NVIDIA driver issue, on Windows 7 everything was fine, using the same settings.
> AMD 2 GB cards are unaffected too.



@W1zzard
Please make this issues clearer on your review, some sites said TPU fake the results of 770 2GB & 960 2GB in Watch Dogs & GTAV.


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## rtwjunkie (Nov 22, 2015)

evilacg said:


> @W1zzard
> Please make this issues clearer on your review, some sites said TPU fake the results of 770 2GB & 960 2GB in Watch Dogs & GTAV.



Site names?


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## evilacg (Nov 22, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> Site names?


Chinese website like Chiphell & 百度ati吧 & 百度显卡吧
http://www.chiphell.com/thread-1424467-1-1.html
http://www.chiphell.com/thread-1424220-1-1.html

http://tieba.baidu.com/p/4169946121

This one I can't find the specific link, maybe deleted
http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kw=显卡


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## W1zzard (Nov 22, 2015)

evilacg said:


> @W1zzard
> Please make this issues clearer on your review, some sites said TPU fake the results of 770 2GB & 960 2GB in Watch Dogs & GTAV.


Why would I fake results to make them look so bad, if obviously I know pretty much exactly how I should fake them without anyone ever knowing?


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## evilacg (Nov 23, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> Why would I fake results to make them look so bad, if obviously I know pretty much exactly how I should fake them without anyone ever knowing?



Hmmm, Guru3d's GTAV with Windows 10 & Forceware 358.91 doesn't seem to have this issues, driver 358.50 causing this problem?
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_380x_4gb_review,9.html


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## W1zzard (Nov 23, 2015)

evilacg said:


> Hmmm, Guru3d's GTAV with Windows 10 & Forceware 358.91 doesn't seem to have this issues, driver 358.50 causing this problem?
> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_380x_4gb_review,9.html


What are their settings?


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## medi01 (Nov 23, 2015)

4 GB VRAM provides little benefit at 1080p/1440p

As a downside, and lack of HDMI 2.0 as the next line... Seriously, guys, how could that be reasonable "cons"?

And to power consumptions, how could results be so different? You have 70w more CARD consumptions, while others show +29w total system (380x vs 960):






http://www.hardwareheaven.com/2015/11/xfx-amd-radeon-r9-380x-review/


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## minorisprit (Nov 23, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> What are their settings?


“Our settings are as follows with very high quality, 16xAF, 2xMSAA and FXAA enabled.”


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## evilacg (Nov 23, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> What are their settings?



Seems like these settings and 960 managed to get average 37fps on 2560x1440 in their test:


> Our settings are as follows with very high quality, 16xAF, 2xMSAA and FXAA enabled.


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## W1zzard (Nov 23, 2015)

evilacg said:


> Seems like these settings and 960 managed to get average 37fps on 2560x1440 in their test:


I did some testing. Looks like "High Resolution Shadows" are causing the slowdowns because they increase GPU memory usage by a few hundred MB. Turning them off will just mask the problem for the 2 GB NVIDIA cards until another game is released that requires significantly more than 2 GB.





The red highlighted setting

GTX 960 1600x900 High Res Shadows On: 12.1 FPS
GTX 960 1600x900 High Res Shadows Off: 56.6 FPS

So what do you think? Should we use lower than highest settings to make sure some GPUs run better in our benchmarks?


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## rtwjunkie (Nov 23, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> So what do you think? Should we use lower than highest settings to make sure some GPUs run better in our benchmarks?



I don't believe so.  By using the same highest settings for all cards, it's easy to see what different cards can do and what others are not capable of.  

Common sense would dictate to a potential buyer that if the card they want only does 22 fps for example on ultra, then if they lowered srttings to high, with shadows at medium, they will have a perfectly playable experience.


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## evilacg (Nov 23, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> I did some testing. Looks like "High Resolution Shadows" are causing the slowdowns because they increase GPU memory usage by a few hundred MB. Turning them off will just mask the problem for the 2 GB NVIDIA cards until another game is released that requires significantly more than 2 GB.
> 
> The red highlighted setting
> 
> ...



It's your call, my opinion would be pointing the facts that NV's card 2GB VRAM maybe a problem on max settings in future game.
Why AMD's 2GB card doesn't have this issues? Is their driver's VRAM management avoided this issues?


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## EarthDog (Nov 23, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> So what do you think? Should we use lower than highest settings to make sure some GPUs run better in our benchmarks?


I love your sarcasm. 

I wonder though, do you get significant slowdowns with a 4GB+ card when you flip that setting on?


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## W1zzard (Nov 23, 2015)

EarthDog said:


> I wonder though, do you get significant slowdowns with a 4GB+ card when you flip that setting on?


Haven't noticed any. All my current benchmark data (including this review) is with High Res Shadows on


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## EarthDog (Nov 23, 2015)

I would be curious to see the difference. Though I certainly don't expect a 4GB to show the same differences, I am wondering if its more than ram and even 4GB+ cards take a significant hit.


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## Steevo (Nov 23, 2015)

Its interesting to note that the 285, a 2GB card from AMD does not suffer this same effect, perhaps due strictly to the way the driver allocates resources, or perhaps there is 970esque problem with memory since its essentially half of a 980 core on the 960. Any chance of getting a bandwidth checkup on the 960?


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## geon2k2 (Nov 23, 2015)

W1zzard said:


> I did some testing. Looks like "High Resolution Shadows" are causing the slowdowns because they increase GPU memory usage by a few hundred MB. Turning them off will just mask the problem for the 2 GB NVIDIA cards until another game is released that requires significantly more than 2 GB.
> 
> ....
> 
> ...



Bravo, I really appreciate that you came forward and defended the results. Obviously you should compare apples with apples and pears with pears and all the settings should be the same.

I do have a suggestion though, which will help with such cases in which one setting is messing up the results and which you might or might not consider.
You could add testing on a common resolution like1080p on medium settings. This will also be useful to individuals with less powerful hardware, which don't even dream to play at maximum settings.


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## xorbe (Nov 23, 2015)

geon2k2 said:


> I do have a suggestion though, which will help with such cases in which one setting is messing up the results and which you might or might not consider.
> You could add testing on a common resolution like1080p on medium settings. This will also be useful to individuals with less powerful hardware, which don't even dream to play at maximum settings.



I have been pointing this out forever at various sites.  Good luck with that ... pm me if you want my personal thoughts on the matter.


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## mastershake575 (Nov 23, 2015)

The 7970ghz was selling for $280 exactly two years ago from today so this is pretty sad (we need a die shrink badly, two years have pasted and we have a new card offering slightly more performance at only $30 cheaper)


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## ASOT (Nov 27, 2015)

A 280x same specs..so just a rebranding in my opinion! 

New features are good,like FreeSync,Delta compresion,pwm..other than that NOTHING 

AMD forgot to put HDMI 2.0/ Happy i still have 280x old boy  

Better take a 290/970/390/X


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## NC37 (Nov 29, 2015)

ASOT said:


> A 280x same specs..so just a rebranding in my opinion!
> 
> New features are good,like FreeSync,Delta compresion,pwm..other than that NOTHING
> 
> ...



Its a rebranding of the 285. Not the 280X. A 280X would actually beat this as the 285, even with GCN1.2, was very underwhelming in performance. Part of the reason why Fiji has been somewhat underwhelming too. It's based on the same bad designs that were implemented in the 285. Granted it's a large step up. But still, 285 was a weak GPU.

Either way, the 380 series is disappointing. The performance of the 380X does not fill the gap between 380 and 390. If they had released an even more stripped down Grenada and called it a 380X it would have been better. Watch nVidia releases the 192bit 204 on the 960Ti and it'll totally blow the 380 series out of the water.


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## ASOT (Nov 29, 2015)

@NC37  Yes,a rebrand of 285 with specs almost of 280x


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