Sapphire R9 285 Dual-X OC 2 GB

[W1zzard]

I have a question about the reviewed GPU.
On page 4, A Closer Look, there is this: "A BIOS switch is also available. It lets you switch between a legacy and UEFI BIOS and acts as a safeguard should something go wrong during a BIOS flash."

Is the switch a two position switch? Does it make the card operate at different speeds or voltages? Note that in the past, I have seen these serve as a stock speeds and voltages BIOS in one position, and accelerated settings in the other.

It's a 2-way switch and switches between two BIOSes with the same clocks and voltages. Sapphire's website claims it's a UEFI toggle, which I haven't verified.

 

[RealNeil]

So can you get a look at the card's BIOS settings? (and maybe tweak them too?)

 

[1d10t]

This card definitely a no -go.I would take aging R9 280X anyday over this

 

[shark974]

What a horribly biased review! First of, the author commends Nvidia's Maxwell architecture...except that's a horrible performer in the 750 Ti and AMD's much older architecture cards run circles around Nvidias's latest and greatest it at it's price point. I mean AMD utterly destroy the Maxwell 750 Ti. The only thing Maxwell has going is a few watts less power usage, which frankly, who cares. Enthusiast gamers that buy $200+ cards care about FPS and value. Power consumption should be only a minor concern as long as it's within reason. Unless you are building an ITX system or something, obviously a tiny minority. Personally i will take a higher watts, more powerful, card every day of the week.

Also he compares it to the "3 year old 7970"...but yeah that card was $450. again Nvidia introduced it's Maxwell architecture with a card that is MUCH slower than it's ancient Fermi based parts, and much slower than Tonga. Was he bitching then? I doubt it. So why whine at AMD for doing the same thing?

To get 7970 performance for $249 is not bad, and more to the point this is old news, both AMD and Nvidia have been pretty stagnant on the performance front and doing lots of brandishing for a while now.

I'll quote Toms hardware for a much less biased review:

This is not a situation that we expected to see. Based on the specifications alone, we thought that the Radeon R9 285 would fall behind the Radeon R9 280 when it comes to average game performance. In actual benchmarks it comes very close, sometimes beating and sometimes losing to the Radeon R9 280 by a small amount, and slightly besting its predecessor on average. This indicates that AMD's new lossless color compression scheme is effective enough to compensate for the raw memory bandwidth deficit that the 256-bit Radeon R9 285 suffers compared to the 384-bit Radeon R9 280. That alone is an impressive technical accomplishment.

From the perspective of a gamer, the Radeon R9 285 isn't quite as impressive when compared to the Radeon R9 280 it will replace. Sure, performance-per-watt has improved significantly, and it's nice to have access to new features such as TrueAudio, a revamped 4K-compatible UVD/VCE, and bridgeless CrossFire. But the most important metric to a gamer is FPS-per-dollar, and this doesn't change much vs. the Radeon R9 280.

Having said that, the Radeon R9 285 is a wonderful option at $250 and probably represents the best product a gamer can buy for that price, just as the Radeon R9 280 did. I certainly wouldn't recommend that current Radeon R9 280 owners upgrade to the Radeon R9 285, as there wouldn't be a noticeable performance improvement. But for folks coming from entry-level graphics cards, the Radeon R9 285 is an excellent upgrade choice and delivers true high-detail 1080p gaming.

And more:

We'd also like to address the GeForce GTX 760's position on our average performance chart. Seeing the 760 sit just below the Radeon R9 270X wasn't something we expected, and this situation caused us to re-run the majority of benchmarks and cross-reference them with other tests we've taken. The results were consistent, though, and we believe this situation is the result of a combination of factors including some newer game titles such as Thief (that favor the GCN architecture), mixed with some high-detail settings that don't sit well with the GeForce GTX 760's 192 GB/s of memory bandwidth (bandwidth that doesn't benefit from lossless color compression). We wouldn't count out the GeForce GTX 760, a card that uses even less power than the Radeon R9 285, but we're beginning to wonder if it's time to re-assess its position over a wider range of benchmarks.

So Nvidia is behind, and they're falling further behind. as the 760 is now falling behind the 270X

Then the Author goes on to include this unasked for advertisement for Nvidia in the review conclusion:

Right now, you can find GTX 770 cards discounted to an amazing $275, and these cards are significantly faster, quieter, and more power efficient.

Well no, actually on newegg the GTX 770 goes for 309+, generally actually $329 and up. Unless you want "Zotac" or open box. I am not sure where the Author is finding these 770 deals but rest assured whatever podunk shady retailer laden with mail in rebates you'll never get, he found them at, AMD has probably get them beat. To compare a $249 MSRP card with a year old $329 street price card? Real fair. I bet the Tonga price will fall a lot too after it's been out a bit, especially as long as the 770 has been.

At least as good a buy as the 770, is the R9 280X, according to TechPower up itself is only a little slower than the 770 (106% vs 114%), much cheaper (newegg street at ~$280 vs $329), and has 3GB RAM vs 2GB, which is a big deal imo, as 2GB is on the verge of limiting. Nvidia has been shorting customers on RAM for years, ask all the owners of 1.5 or 1.2 GB 580 and 570, where AMD was already at 2GB with the 6970...ask which owner of those cards is feeling more future proof right now. Or my brother, who paid $650 for Geforce 780 with...a whopping 3GB RAM, the same amount that has been in AMD's $250 cards for years. He's thinking of getting a 4k monitor and well, got the old Nvidia RAM shaft as his GPU is fine but that RAM could be a future problem. Nice $650 spent with Nvidia for a possible future 4k paperweight cause they wanted a couple $ more profit. Personally I wouldn't buy a 2GB card for more than $250. And, I do fault AMD a little bit for only 2GB in the 285, but, it's only a $249 card so kind of understandable. Nothing like what Nvidia has been doing the last few years where their $600+ cards skimp on RAM.

Basically I dont see the 770 as any great deal, looks lie it slots in about right. Somewhat faster (but not much) than 285 at a significantly higher price, both have only 2GB RAM. A little faster than 280X, more expensive, less RAM. Cheaper than 290, slower, half the RAM. So it slots in about right between all those cards, which I have to admit is pretty rare for an Nvidia card to actually give fair value against AMD, so maybe that's why the Author was so amazed? I dont care about noise (aftermarket coolers are quiet) or power consumption (they are all fine).


And I left out the R9 280. It's to the point of being significantly slower than 770, according to Tom's summary the 770 is about 19% faster than the R9 280, so it may not be a comparable product for some, but it's MUCH cheaper (street price as little as $210) and has 3GB of RAM vs 770's two, which I already made my feeling clear about the extreme importance of. PERSONALLY I would take the extra 1GB of future proofing RAM over the 19% performance even if they were straight up the same price, let alone the 280 being $120 cheaper. Personally the 280 is probably the best deal of any of these mentioned cards IMO. Plus you get Star Citizen and Alien Isolation free, which is an AMAZING game bundle imo, but I do admit this could vary per user, some may not care about these games, although I'd venture objectively it's far better than what games Nvidia gives currently. Nvidia appears to be giving Borderlands the pre-sequel, which at least for me is not very exciting (very poor graphics as well as it's based PS3/360) but again, this could vary by user and at least it's not an old game. But for me there's zero contest.

 

[The Von Matrices]

What a horribly biased review! First of, the author commends Nvidia's Maxwell architecture...except that's a horrible performer in the 750 Ti and AMD's much older architecture cards run circles around Nvidias's latest and greatest it at it's price point. I mean AMD utterly destroy the Maxwell 750 Ti. The only thing Maxwell has going is a few watts less power usage, which frankly, who cares. Enthusiast gamers that buy $200+ cards care about FPS and value. Power consumption should be only a minor concern as long as it's within reason. Unless you are building an ITX system or something, obviously a tiny minority. Personally i will take a higher watts, more powerful, card every day of the week.

Also he compares it to the "3 year old 7970"...but yeah that card was $450. again Nvidia introduced it's Maxwell architecture with a card that is MUCH slower than it's ancient Fermi based parts, and much slower than Tonga. Was he bitching then? I doubt it. So why whine at AMD for doing the same thing?

To get 7970 performance for $249 is not bad, and more to the point this is old news, both AMD and Nvidia have been pretty stagnant on the performance front and doing lots of brandishing for a while now.

I'll quote Toms hardware for a much less biased review:

This is not a situation that we expected to see. Based on the specifications alone, we thought that the Radeon R9 285 would fall behind the Radeon R9 280 when it comes to average game performance. In actual benchmarks it comes very close, sometimes beating and sometimes losing to the Radeon R9 280 by a small amount, and slightly besting its predecessor on average. This indicates that AMD's new lossless color compression scheme is effective enough to compensate for the raw memory bandwidth deficit that the 256-bit Radeon R9 285 suffers compared to the 384-bit Radeon R9 280. That alone is an impressive technical accomplishment.

From the perspective of a gamer, the Radeon R9 285 isn't quite as impressive when compared to the Radeon R9 280 it will replace. Sure, performance-per-watt has improved significantly, and it's nice to have access to new features such as TrueAudio, a revamped 4K-compatible UVD/VCE, and bridgeless CrossFire. But the most important metric to a gamer is FPS-per-dollar, and this doesn't change much vs. the Radeon R9 280.

Having said that, the Radeon R9 285 is a wonderful option at $250 and probably represents the best product a gamer can buy for that price, just as the Radeon R9 280 did. I certainly wouldn't recommend that current Radeon R9 280 owners upgrade to the Radeon R9 285, as there wouldn't be a noticeable performance improvement. But for folks coming from entry-level graphics cards, the Radeon R9 285 is an excellent upgrade choice and delivers true high-detail 1080p gaming.


And more:

We'd also like to address the GeForce GTX 760's position on our average performance chart. Seeing the 760 sit just below the Radeon R9 270X wasn't something we expected, and this situation caused us to re-run the majority of benchmarks and cross-reference them with other tests we've taken. The results were consistent, though, and we believe this situation is the result of a combination of factors including some newer game titles such as Thief (that favor the GCN architecture), mixed with some high-detail settings that don't sit well with the GeForce GTX 760's 192 GB/s of memory bandwidth (bandwidth that doesn't benefit from lossless color compression). We wouldn't count out the GeForce GTX 760, a card that uses even less power than the Radeon R9 285, but we're beginning to wonder if it's time to re-assess its position over a wider range of benchmarks.

So Nvidia is behind, and they're falling further behind. as the 760 is now falling behind the 270X

Then the Author goes on to include this unasked for advertisement for Nvidia in the review conclusion:

Right now, you can find GTX 770 cards discounted to an amazing $275, and these cards are significantly faster, quieter, and more power efficient.

Well no, actually on newegg the GTX 770 goes for 309+, generally actually $329 and up. Unless you want "Zotac" or open box. I am not sure where the Author is finding these 770 deals but rest assured whatever podunk shady retailer laden with mail in rebates you'll never get, he found them at, AMD has probably get them beat. To compare a $249 MSRP card with a year old $329 street price card? Real fair. I bet the Tonga price will fall a lot too after it's been out a bit, especially as long as the 770 has been.

At least as good a buy as the 770, is the R9 280X, according to TechPower up itself is only a little slower than the 770 (106% vs 114%), much cheaper (newegg street at ~$280 vs $329), and has 3GB RAM vs 2GB, which is a big deal imo, as 2GB is on the verge of limiting. Nvidia has been shorting customers on RAM for years, ask all the owners of 1.5 or 1.2 GB 580 and 570, where AMD was already at 2GB with the 6970...ask which owner of those cards is feeling more future proof right now. Or my brother, who paid $650 for Geforce 780 with...a whopping 3GB RAM, the same amount that has been in AMD's $250 cards for years. He's thinking of getting a 4k monitor and well, got the old Nvidia RAM shaft as his GPU is fine but that RAM could be a future problem. Nice $650 spent with Nvidia for a possible future 4k paperweight cause they wanted a couple $ more profit. Personally I wouldn't buy a 2GB card for more than $250. And, I do fault AMD a little bit for only 2GB in the 285, but, it's only a $249 card so kind of understandable. Nothing like what Nvidia has been doing the last few years where their $600+ cards skimp on RAM.

Basically I dont see the 770 as any great deal, looks lie it slots in about right. Somewhat faster (but not much) than 285 at a significantly higher price, both have only 2GB RAM. A little faster than 280X, more expensive, less RAM. Cheaper than 290, slower, half the RAM. So it slots in about right between all those cards, which I have to admit is pretty rare for an Nvidia card to actually give fair value against AMD, so maybe that's why the Author was so amazed? I dont care about noise (aftermarket coolers are quiet) or power consumption (they are all fine).


And I left out the R9 280. It's to the point of being significantly slower than 770, according to Tom's summary the 770 is about 19% faster than the R9 280, so it may not be a comparable product for some, but it's MUCH cheaper (street price as little as $210) and has 3GB of RAM vs 770's two, which I already made my feeling clear about the extreme importance of. PERSONALLY I would take the extra 1GB of future proofing RAM over the 19% performance even if they were straight up the same price, let alone the 280 being $120 cheaper. Personally the 280 is probably the best deal of any of these mentioned cards IMO. Plus you get Star Citizen and Alien Isolation free, which is an AMAZING game bundle imo, but I do admit this could vary per user, some may not care about these games, although I'd venture objectively it's far better than what games Nvidia gives currently. Nvidia appears to be giving Borderlands the pre-sequel, which at least for me is not very exciting (very poor graphics as well as it's based PS3/360) but again, this could vary by user and at least it's not an old game. But for me there's zero contest.

If you think the mediocre review was because of some Nvidia conspiracy, then you are completely missing the point.

AMD's biggest competition is with itself. Last month you could have bought an R9 280X at the same performance and the same price as you can buy an R9 285 today. All the reviewers agree that this launch does absolutely nothing to change the competitive landscape of the market, and that is why it is so disappointing.

 

[1d10t]

What a horribly biased review!and bla..bla..

Any author can have their opinion as they pleased...but considering the fact lets face the reality...R9 285 doesn't make any dent
Oh and welcome to the forums btw

If you think the mediocre review was because of some Nvidia conspiracy, then you are completely missing the point.

AMD's biggest competition is with itself. Last month you could have bought an R9 280X at the same performance and the same price as you can buy an R9 285 today. All the reviewers agree that this launch does absolutely nothing to change the competitive landscape of the market, and that is why it is so disappointing.

+1 to this.

 

[dj-electric]

For those who haven't noticed, GTX 770 prices went up sharply.

 

[Steevo]

Nvidia adjusted them according to the performance/price of this turd.

Perhaps AMD could use some compute clusters to calculate our disappointment in their mediocre mid range replacement, then follow that up with how well they expect a larger chip than its replacing to make them less money, this is Phenom all over again.

 

[The Von Matrices]

they expect a larger chip than its replacing to make them less money, this is Phenom all over again.

You are forgetting that the GPU in the R9 285 not a fully enabled die while the GPU in the R9 280X is. Comparing partially enabled die to partially enabled die, the R9 285 clearly outperforms the R9 280. The leaks indicate that there will a R9 285X using a fully enabled Tonga GPU, and that is expected to outperform the R9 280X as it should considering the larger die size.

 

[Steevo]

You are forgetting that the GPU in the R9 285 not a fully enabled die while the GPU in the R9 280X is. Comparing partially enabled die to partially enabled die, the R9 285 clearly outperforms the R9 280. The leaks indicate that there will a R9 285X using a fully enabled Tonga GPU, and that is expected to outperform the R9 280X as it should considering the larger die size.

Considering where it is at, it a piss poor move as overall. They should expect to sell more of these than 290's, and since the die size is larger, and since they don't really make cards, but merely the silicon that goes on the card a smaller piece of that as wafer costs remain the same keeps more money in their pocket. From a business perspective if they sell 3 to 1 of midrange to high end on a well developed process node they should be paying complete attention to the midrange, and cut this die size by the 25% it could have been. The number of cut shaders (1/8) , and the as of yet unknown memory interface of the full die makes me guess that it may only reach 290X levels in full form, merely allowing for energy consumption benefits and cheaper components. Other than a few watts dispersed as heat where is the real benefit? It seems that the same or more energy savings could have been had by merely refining the Tahiti silicon with a respin, better clock management, and really cutting out of unneeded parts.
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=364277

This is the reason why AMD cards have higher power draw at everything but idle single screen. Chop the whole UVD out, make it a secondary chip wired to the memory bus and output buffer logic and stop screwing around, or put a second clock generator on the damn board for it.

Perhaps W1zzard can see if the core downclocks on this board too, run something like Heaven in window mode, then open youtube or the like and see if core clocks drop for UVD. That would be interesting.

 

[Sony Xperia S]

I Agree - Tonga is not bad, but on the other hand it does not change anything substantially compared to Tahiti. This would have been a nice result 1 - 1.5 years after the introduction of Tahiti. But that's almost been 3 years ago! The last time a GPU company showed no real progress after 3 years they went out of business shortly afterwards...

 

[Fluffmeister]

No Tonga XT coming?

http://videocardz.com/52441/did-amd-just-cancel-radeon-r9-285x

 

[RealNeil]

AMD and NVIDIA go back and forth all of the time. They respond to one another's releases and then they're responded to in kind.

My R9-280X OC 3GB cards are awesome for the price and they run Crossfire without any problems. But my older GTX-680s in SLI are pretty cool too.
I just get whatever I can afford, whenever I can. If either company want's loyalty, they should buy a dog.

You can expect both companies to release bigger, better GPUs for the holidays. I look forward to that.

 

[Sony Xperia S]

No Tonga XT coming?

http://videocardz.com/52441/did-amd-just-cancel-radeon-r9-285x

No, we should not jump onto wrong conclusions because logically it doesn't make a lot of sense not to produce full cores for our market.

However, I'm more interested why TPU has no review and performance comparison with R9 280.

Basically, there is no 280 but there is 285, there is no 285X but there is 280X. Very confusing, as if there is indeed something going on behind the scenes.

 

[W1zzard]

However, I'm more interested why TPU has no review and performance comparison with R9 280.

Because AMD didn't send me a R9 280

 

[RealNeil]

Because AMD didn't send me a R9 280

That's an excellent reason!

 

[Sony Xperia S]

That's an excellent reason!

Actually, it doesn't answer my question because it is not the original reason but more likely a consequence.

Why didn't AMD send the card? And why does TPU rely on them when they can take the card from the AIB partners? What was AMD's idea? What happens inside?

 

[W1zzard]

Why didn't AMD send the card? And why does TPU rely on them when they can take the card from the AIB partners? What was AMD's idea? What happens inside?

I have no idea. AIBs didn't sample R9 280.

 

[Sony Xperia S]

I have no idea. AIBs didn't sample R9 280.

Well, we can put it somewhere between / around GTX 660 Ti, GTX 760 and a little bit lower than R9 285.
Perhaps around 5% (on average) inferior to R9 285.

 

[nunyabuisness]

I think its time to abandon AMD. no real advancements in CPU or GPU tech IN YEARS. all they seem to do is throw more power at the problems they have
they are still stuck in the 2D transistor world. still in the 28nm/32 nm size range. it's just disappointing

Also Tech powerup. if you are going to review a video card such as the 285 how about including the card it's replacing for comparison. the 280. you included the 280X which offers no comparison

 

[Sony Xperia S]

I think its time to abandon AMD. no real advancements in CPU or GPU tech IN YEARS.

Now, after so much time has passed, it indeed proves that it was a severe mistake that they threw their money on ATi.

Instead, they should have used these financial resources in engineering potential, like Intel designs their own graphics.

Whatever, yes, I agree that AMD is in a deep trouble, but maybe after 5-6 months they will release something from R9 300 series.

 

[RealNeil]

I think its time to abandon AMD~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ha! That was good!,..............I laughed and snorted coffee through my nose when I read that.

Also Tech powerup. if you are going to review a video card such as the 285 how about including the card it's replacing for comparison. the 280. you included the 280X which offers no comparison

I think that the reviewer already commented on the fact that he only had certain cards on hand to test with.