XFX R9 280 Double Dissipation 3GB Video Card Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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XFX R9 280 Double Dissipation 3GB Video Card Review - The AMD Radeon R9 280 is almost to the end of its shelf life, and you know what that means, record low pricing making an excellent value for performance right now. We have the XFX R9 280 Double Dissipation 3GB and will be comparing it with an R9 285, and also a custom GTX 760. This may be a deal!
 
Thanks for another great review. This looks like a great bargain for 1080p gaming.

Fixed, thanks! - Kyle
 
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I love these reviews. If I was doing a budget gaming build right now, this would be at the top of my list Great performance.
 
Great review guys, thanks for putting the time in on a card that is going out the door. How about some crossfire!
 
the R9 280 is a very good card. no doubt about it. but the review makes it look as though the R9 285 cannot compete with the R9 280 and GTX 760 which is incorrect. just to prove how inconsistent these reviews are

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...85_gaming_oc_video_card_review/7#.VD1KLFdEN8E

"With the MSI Radeon R9 285 GAMING OC we were able to run this game at "Very High" settings with SMAA 2TX at 1920x1080. With the R9 280 and GTX 760 we had to use the next lowest setting of "High." All the architecture improvements in the third iteration of GCN are helping the R9 285 in this particular game for whatever reason. There is no question about it, the best card for this game is the MSI Radeon R9 285 GAMING OC, it provides the best gameplay experience. "

"In this apples-to-apples graph we are comparing at 1920x1080 with Very High Quality, which was playable on the R9 285. You can see the R9 285 is about 10% faster than a stock Radeon R9 280! That is impressive since the R9 280 has more memory and a wider memory bus and more memory bandwidth. That means there are real architecture improvements going on here giving us better shader performance out of the R9 285."

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...sipation_3gb_video_card_review/7#.VD1KB1dEN8E

"The AMD Radeon R9 285 was the straggler in this game. We had to leave aliasing at 2TX SMAA, with the system spec also at "High." It could not handle 4X SMAA. It averaged 45.5 FPS, which was at the lower end of playability, compared to the others. "

In the first review the MSI R9 285 is clocked at 973 mhz. for just 55 mhz above stock clocks its 10% faster than stock R9 280 (933 mhz). how did this change all of a sudden. In fact the stock R9 285 would easily run at the same 45.5 fps with Very high settings (SMAA 2TX). maybe the editors should check into it.

Frankly the price perf of R9 280 is unbeatable. But thats due to the end of life clearance sale prices. Still the R9 285 is definitely a better card than GTX 760. both stock for stock and OC for OC.
 
Like the overclocking in this review.

The 280 is a great deal, or the 280x used at about the same price. Hard to beat their value until the next gen GPUs finally arrive!
 
raghu78 said:
the R9 280 is a very good card. no doubt about it. but the review makes it look as though the R9 285 cannot compete with the R9 280 and GTX 760 which is incorrect. just to prove how inconsistent these reviews are

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...85_gaming_oc_video_card_review/7#.VD1KLFdEN8E

"With the MSI Radeon R9 285 GAMING OC we were able to run this game at "Very High" settings with SMAA 2TX at 1920x1080. With the R9 280 and GTX 760 we had to use the next lowest setting of "High." All the architecture improvements in the third iteration of GCN are helping the R9 285 in this particular game for whatever reason. There is no question about it, the best card for this game is the MSI Radeon R9 285 GAMING OC, it provides the best gameplay experience. "

"In this apples-to-apples graph we are comparing at 1920x1080 with Very High Quality, which was playable on the R9 285. You can see the R9 285 is about 10% faster than a stock Radeon R9 280! That is impressive since the R9 280 has more memory and a wider memory bus and more memory bandwidth. That means there are real architecture improvements going on here giving us better shader performance out of the R9 285."

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...sipation_3gb_video_card_review/7#.VD1KB1dEN8E

"The AMD Radeon R9 285 was the straggler in this game. We had to leave aliasing at 2TX SMAA, with the system spec also at "High." It could not handle 4X SMAA. It averaged 45.5 FPS, which was at the lower end of playability, compared to the others. "

In the first review the MSI R9 285 is clocked at 973 mhz. for just 55 mhz above stock clocks its 10% faster than stock R9 280 (933 mhz). how did this change all of a sudden. In fact the stock R9 285 would easily run at the same 45.5 fps with Very high settings (SMAA 2TX). maybe the editors should check into it.

Frankly the price perf of R9 280 is unbeatable. But thats due to the end of life clearance sale prices. Still the R9 285 is definitely a better card than GTX 760. both stock for stock and OC for OC.
Click to expand...

You are always picky to read specific parts of the review to try to endorse your theory.. in the first link you've posted (285 Gaming card Pre-overclocked BTW) the apple to apple in crysis 3 was tested at 1920x1080 SMAA 2TX the card scored min: 31, max 69, ave: 47.8 While in the new review the Apple to apple was tested with the game at 1920x1080 2x MSAA. which have a huge impact in the performance being bandwidth hunger and also eat more vRAM.. and its where the 280 excels in comparison the 285.. comparing a software post processed based AA vs a truly AA its pointless in performance..

one review with another review should be only comparable when are using SAME hardware and SAME graphical settings.. The test setup of brent (frist 285 review) its a 3770K overclocked at 4.8ghz versus the Grady machine which its the 3770K overclocked to 4.6ghz which also have a good noticeable effect in crysis 3..

Also they do not even used the same drivers in those reviews as start point, which made some performance changes from the 14.3beta to the actual 14.9...
 
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Different drivers, different game patches, different reviewer, different test system, different cards altogether (custom retail factory overclocked 285 in the launch review) etc....

Let's stay on topic for this review.
 
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I love my R9 280. It is a good card at a great price. The only downside is the power consumption.
 
raghu78 said:
the R9 280 is a very good card. no doubt about it. but the review makes it look as though the R9 285 cannot compete with the R9 280 and GTX 760 which is incorrect. just to prove how inconsistent these reviews are

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...85_gaming_oc_video_card_review/7#.VD1KLFdEN8E

"With the MSI Radeon R9 285 GAMING OC we were able to run this game at "Very High" settings with SMAA 2TX at 1920x1080. With the R9 280 and GTX 760 we had to use the next lowest setting of "High." All the architecture improvements in the third iteration of GCN are helping the R9 285 in this particular game for whatever reason. There is no question about it, the best card for this game is the MSI Radeon R9 285 GAMING OC, it provides the best gameplay experience. "

"In this apples-to-apples graph we are comparing at 1920x1080 with Very High Quality, which was playable on the R9 285. You can see the R9 285 is about 10% faster than a stock Radeon R9 280! That is impressive since the R9 280 has more memory and a wider memory bus and more memory bandwidth. That means there are real architecture improvements going on here giving us better shader performance out of the R9 285."

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...sipation_3gb_video_card_review/7#.VD1KB1dEN8E

"The AMD Radeon R9 285 was the straggler in this game. We had to leave aliasing at 2TX SMAA, with the system spec also at "High." It could not handle 4X SMAA. It averaged 45.5 FPS, which was at the lower end of playability, compared to the others. "

In the first review the MSI R9 285 is clocked at 973 mhz. for just 55 mhz above stock clocks its 10% faster than stock R9 280 (933 mhz). how did this change all of a sudden. In fact the stock R9 285 would easily run at the same 45.5 fps with Very high settings (SMAA 2TX). maybe the editors should check into it.

Frankly the price perf of R9 280 is unbeatable. But thats due to the end of life clearance sale prices. Still the R9 285 is definitely a better card than GTX 760. both stock for stock and OC for OC.
Click to expand...

I feel like you should never post again. Ever.
 
I love the thoroughness of this review. Thank you.

favorite part: 20% performance increase on the overclock in Farcry 3, thats impressive.

Thanks for the great review guys.
 
Nice review.
And I do love these cards, I got the nearly identical 280X in my ITX build, and despite how quiet the cooler is, it works perfectly in that tiny machine along with a @65W TDP Kaveri.

These cards have aged really well considering this is basically just a tweaked 7950, can't wait for 20nm, but it does feel like we need 4K to become more normal before we'll start seeing some crazy graphics revolution, still not that I'm complaining, it's essentially money saved as you won't feel like your 2+ year old rig is that behind.
 
VRM temps available for these cards? I'd like to see how hot they get when you pump in more voltage to retain the 1175mhz core clock, if they stay below 85 it would be preferable.
 
Shame the R9 280 is going to be discontinued it really has a great bang for the buck.

The R9 285 is a downgrade and only seems to be cheaper to produce with the gimped 256 bit bus and 2GB of VRAM. :rolleyes:
 
Bobert said:
Shame the R9 280 is going to be discontinued it really has a great bang for the buck.

The R9 285 is a downgrade and only seems to be cheaper to produce with the gimped 256 bit bus and 2GB of VRAM. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Well the bus on the 285 isn't a problem for the same reason it isn't a problem on the Maxwell based Graphics cards, the size though, yes that is a slight downgrade, but overall the 285 is a step forward, although not a very significant one at that.
 
Medallish said:
Well the bus on the 285 isn't a problem for the same reason it isn't a problem on the Maxwell based Graphics cards, the size though, yes that is a slight downgrade, but overall the 285 is a step forward, although not a very significant one at that.
Click to expand...

the 256bit bus in the 285 its just a way to cut prices... as was kinda evident from the r9 285 gaming review to this one.. the 285 perform worse in comparison to the 280 when pushed resolution and MSAA levels..
 
I have a question. When I look at the pictures of the card, there's two mini-displayport's on it even noted on your review page but XFX's specification on their own page says it's got only 1 mini Displayport's. What's up with that?
http://xfxforce.com/en-us/products/...9-280-double-dissipation-edition-r9-280a-tdfd
Even Newegg and all the sites selling them says 1.

I looked at the 290's version and there is indeed only 1 displayport on it.
 
Kaitian said:
I have a question. When I look at the pictures of the card, there's two mini-displayport's on it even noted on your review page but XFX's specification on their own page says it's got only 1 mini Displayport's. What's up with that?
http://xfxforce.com/en-us/products/...9-280-double-dissipation-edition-r9-280a-tdfd
Even Newegg and all the sites selling them says 1.

I looked at the 290's version and there is indeed only 1 displayport on it.
Click to expand...

This is an error, i am getting it fixed now. Thank you
 
Very nice.

I got two of XFX's factory OC-ed DD R9 280X cards, used, but mint, for $175 each, about four months back. Still happy with that purchase. Nothing I can think of that they won't run well at 1920x1200.
 
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