ASUS R9 270X DirectCU II TOP 2 GB

AMD's new Radeon R9 270X draws its lineage more from the Radeon HD 7800 series than any other. The R9 270X is, for all intents and purposes, identical to the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition which launched at $350, but settled down to around $250, holding on to that price-point quite well, and for quite long. At 1050 MHz, its GPU core clock speed is 5 percent higher, and at 1400 MHz (5.60 GT/s effective), its memory clock speed is a significant 16 percent higher than the HD 7870.

The 28 nm "Pitcairn" silicon on which the Radeon R9 270X is based features 1,280 stream processors based on the Graphics CoreNext micro-architecture, 80 texture memory units (TMUs), 32 raster operations units (ROPs), and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface holding 2 GB of memory.




The R9 270X reviewed today comes from ASUS. Their R9 270X Direct CU II TOP brings with it the company's dual-fan thermal solution and a large overclock out of the box, reaching 1120 MHz on GPU. Memory is not overclocked, and remains at 1400 MHz.

ASUS is charging a $10 higher price than the reference design, for overclock out of the box and their cooler, a price increase that doesn't seem unreasonable.

Packaging

Contents

You will receive:

• Graphics card
  
• Driver CD + documentation
  
• PCIe power cable
  
• CrossFire bridge

The Card

ASUS has performed a slight facelift to their DirectCU II cooler, it now resembles more the model used on the R9 280X and NVIDIA GTX 780. Dimensions of the card are 26.5 x 12.5 cm.


Installation requires two slots in your system.


Display connectivity options include two DVI ports, one HDMI port, and one DisplayPort. You may use all outputs at the same time, so triple-monitor surround gaming is possible with one card.

The GPU also includes an HDMI sound device. It is HDMI 1.4a compatible, which includes HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies support.


One CrossFire connector allows you to combine up to two R9 270X cards in a CrossFire configuration.


Pictured above are the front and back, showing the disassembled board. High-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods, etc., please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.

A Closer Look

ASUS is using a total of three heatpipes, two of which are double-length to keep the card cool. You can also see a memory pad here, that cools some of the memory chips (not all). The remaining chips are cooled by the airflow of the fans.


The card requires two 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors. This configuration is good for up to 225 W of power draw.


ASUS has rebranded their voltage controller, I suspect it's a model from uPI or CHIL.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Elpida and carry the model number W2032BBBG-6A-F. They are specified to run at 1500 MHz (6000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


AMD's Pitcairn graphics processor uses the GCN shader architecture. It is produced on a 28 nm process at TSMC. The transistor count is 2.8 billion.

Test System

• All video card results were obtained on this exact system with exactly the same configuration.
  
• All games were 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 was tested at the following settings and resolutions:

• 1600 x 900, 4x Anti-aliasing. Common resolution for most smaller flatscreens and laptops today (17" - 19").
  
• 1920 x 1080, 4x Anti-aliasing. Most common widescreen resolution for larger displays (22" - 26").
  
• 2560 x 1600, 4x Anti-aliasing. Highest possible resolution for commonly available displays (30").

Assassin's Creed 3

Assassin's Creed III, published in 2012, sees series protagonist Desmond Miles relive the memories of his 18th century ancestor Ratonhnhaké:ton (aka. Connor), giving you an experience many fans craved: that of an assassin in colonial America during the American Revolution.

Based on a rehashed AnvilNext game engine using DirectX 11 and Havok CPU physics, Assassin's Creed III is the most graphics-intensive member of the franchise, depicting North American landscapes in great detail.

 

Battlefield 3

Arguably one of the most anticipated online shooters of recent times, Battlefield 3 is the latest addition to some of the most engaging online multiplayer shooter franchises. It combines infantry combat with mechanized warfare and includes transport vehicles, armored personnel carriers, main battle tanks, attack helicopters, and combat aircrafts—pretty much everything that goes into today's battlefields. Its infantry combat is coupled with role-playing elements, which makes the experience all the more engaging. It also has a single-player campaign that adds a few gigabytes to its installer.

Behind all this is a spanking new game engine by EA-DICE called Frostbite 2. It makes use of every possible feature DirectX 11 has to offer, including hardware tessellation and new lighting effects, to deliver some of the most captivating visuals gamers have ever had access to. Not playing this game on the PC is a grave injustice to what's in store. Faster PCs are rewarded with better visuals.

 

Bioshock Infinite

An early frontrunner for 2013 "Game of the Year," Bioshock: Infinite pulls gamers out of the depths of Rapture and into the heights of Columbia, a bustling metropolis of the early 20th century that floats in the sky, with buildings and localities that are interconnected through bridges and cable cars. The shooter is renowned amongst critics for some genuine innovation in gameplay mechanics, the proper handling of NPCs, and a story that will linger long after you've finished the game.

Based on a retrofitted Unreal Engine 3, Bioshock Infinite takes advantage of the DirectX 11 API and should tax most GPUs moderately.

 

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is 2012's annual dose of the franchise. Refreshingly, it places our gun-wielding protagonists in a near-future setting where military arsenal has become a little too smart for our comfort, and has fallen into the wrong hands. Black Ops 2 is a Treyarch development and does, as such, beat Infinity Ward's productions in visual detail. It uses a new game engine that has been optimized around the capabilities of DirectX 11 hardware, which makes it stress such hardware properly.

 

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is Techland's latest video game in the Call of Juarez Series. You play as Silas Greaves, a bounty hunter taking credits for killing notorious western outlaws like Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, Jesse James, and others. The game is a typical, linear first-person shooter, but offers a talent tree, fast paced action, and one-on-one duels with special game mechanics. Its competitive pricing and entertaining gameplay made the game an instant success.

Techland is using the fifth version of their Chrome Engine. It has full support for DirectX 11 and advanced lighting effects. We tested using the highest details settings available.

Crysis

After the tremendous success of Far Cry, the German game studio Crytek released their shooter Crysis in 2007. The game was by far the most hyped and anticipated game in 2007, and forums were full of "Can my system run Crysis?" threads because of its high hardware requirements. Just like in Far Cry, the plot evolves on a small island with a thick and richly detailed jungle world. A lot of attention has been given to small details like accurate physics. When you, for example, fire on a tree trunk, it will shatter and the tree will fall over and leave a stump behind, and enemies in a car can be stopped by shooting the tire of the car. The game graphics are, even for today, top notch, yet the game still runs well on most computers.

 

 

Crysis 3

Set decades after the events of Crysis 2, you wake up from a stasis pod to find long lost friend and squadmate "Psycho," who explains how C.E.L.L has virtually taken over the world by monopolizing energy production in Crysis 3. The game lets you take the Crysis trilogy to its logical conclusion by putting a stop to C.E.L.L and an alien armada in a final and epic battle.

Based on a refined CryEngine 3 that supports DirectX 11 out of the box, Crysis 3 is easily one of the most visually stunning games ever made. You are handsomely rewarded for having fast hardware, but mainstream GPUs aren't left out in the lurch. At least that's the idea.

 

Diablo III

Blizzard's Diablo 3 is the latest release in one of the most popular action RPG series of all time. You, the hero, will experience epic adventures on your journey to defeat Diablo, the master of Hell. Diablo 3 set the record for the fastest-selling PC game by selling over 3.5 million copies on the first day of its release. It was also the most pre-ordered game on Amazon.

Blizzard's DirectX 9 engine provides the player with an isometric view on the action. The game has been tuned to run well on most computer systems, which lets as many players as possible experience the game. We tested Diablo 3 running at the highest image-quality settings available.

 

Far Cry 3

In a nutshell, Far Cry 3 is everything gamers missed in Far Cry 2 (after Crytek was tossed out of the franchise by Ubisoft), and even Crysis 2 (in which Crytek swaps the tropical paradise setting for grim, apocalyptic New York).

Ubisoft got quite a few things right about the tropical paradise in Far Cry 3. You play the survivor of a perfect island holiday gone wrong as you and a group of friends are captured by a group of local terrorists. The DirectX 11-optimized version of the Dunia Engine recreates jungles, beaches, and the ocean in stunning detail if your hardware can keep up.

 

GRID 2

GRID 2 is a racing game developed by Codemasters. Featuring prominent real-world locations like Paris, Chicago, and Dubai, there is also a wide selection of cars. These range from muscle cars to luxury supercars, like the McLaren F1. In-game, you will experience a mix of arcade and simulation paired with stunning graphics and flashbacks to get you back on the road quickly.

GRID 2 is the first Codemasters game that uses the new EGO 3.0 engine. It has full support for DirectX 11, Global Illumination (using DirectCompute), and other great visual effects. We played on the highest settings available. The game also includes a separate binary (which we used) with support for the AVX instruction set found on modern CPUs.

Hitman: Absolution

Hitman: Absolution sees our stealthy, classy, and barcode-laced baldie, Agent 47, swing back into action, only this time he's on the wrong side of the line with his former handlers.

The game uses a rehashed version of Square Enix's Glacier 2 engine that supports DirectX 11 and is able to render large crowds without much overhead.

Metro: Last Light

Metro: Last Light is the sequel to Metro 2033. Published by the Ukrainian game studio 4A Games, it is set in the same post-apocalyptic future as its predecessor, where mankind tries to survive in the underground of Moscow's Metro. The story takes you through claustrophobic tunnels where you fight both humans and mutants. Each step takes you closer towards revealing a dark future, and the possiblity to prevent it.

Just like in the last title, the 4A Engine is used. It has full support for DirectX 11, Tessellation, and PhysX. We tested at the highest details with PhysX turned off.

 

 

Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs is a GTA-style crime/action adventure developed by Square Enix. You are Wei Shen, an undercover police officer who is infiltrating the Hong Kong triads. The game's unique combat system gives you significant freedom over your movement, the actions you take, and your counter-attacks—individual body parts can also be targeted.

A custom in-house engine was developed to provide DirectX 11 graphics through a deferred renderer. This makes complex characters and graphical effects required for a realistic view of the beautiful city of Hong Kong possible. We tested Sleeping Dogs at its highest settings, but disabled super-sampling.

 

Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist is the latest addition to the smash-hit, stealth-action franchise. A direct sequel to Splinter Cell: Conviction, it sees our hero combat a ferocious new terrorist outfit that calls itself "The Engineers" and targets U.S. overseas assets. Based on the heavily modified Unreal Engine 2.5, Blacklist takes advantage of DirectX 11, including tessellation and HBAO+, to conjure up some geometrically heavy scenes and visual effects. It should be sufficiently taxing on modern performance-segment GPUs.

 

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm

StarCraft II, released in July 2010, is a sequel to Blizzard's award-winning strategy game StarCraft. In the 26th century, three species, the Terrans, Protoss, and Zerg, are at war. The campaign takes you through many missions on different planets where you have to face various enemy factions or, sometimes, several of them at once. StarCraft II features a similar number of units—some of them new—as the original game. Due to the massive success of the first game, Blizzard chose to focus a large aspect of the game on multiplayer combat through Battle.net. The campaign serves as a good introduction to units and concepts, but the real action is in competitive multiplayer combat.

The StarCraft II engine only supports DirectX 9, but several patches have improved rendering quality and available options considerably. We tested the game using a recorded 1 vs. 1 multiplayer replay in the late-game phase. Please note that StarCraft II is very CPU limited on high-end cards, especially on lower resolutions, so you may not see much scaling between some cards. StarCraft II does not support multi-monitor gaming because it would provide an unfair advantage in competitive multiplayer as a larger portion of the map would be visible.

 

 

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

This isn't just a game; it is a masterpiece. TES: Skyrim is a very large sandbox game that rejects the quality-quantity inverse proportionality. By genre, TES: Skyrim is a role-playing game. It combines some of the best elements of older titles in the franchise with some new sandbox elements to churn out an extremely engaging and addictive game. It makes use of Bethesda's Creation Engine which isn't visually intensive in that it doesn't use taxing graphics features; instead, the game's presentation itself, with large open worlds, ends up taxing your hardware. Faster GPUs result in smoother gameplay with most eye-candy turned on.

 

Tomb Raider

One of the oldest and most engaging game franchises, Tomb Raider deserves to be reimagined to fully make use of the current generation of gaming hardware. The newest Tomb Raider game takes us back to the beginnings of Lara Croft, the agile and resourceful explorer we've grown to adore and respect.

Based on a customized CrystalEngine by Crystal Dynamics, the new Tomb Raider takes advantage of DirectX 11 and DirectCompute to create not only stunning tropical environments, but also some character realism by using AMD TressFX technology. In the interest of fairness, we disabled TressFX in our testing.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

World of Warcraft is the most successful massively multiplayer online game in the world, with far over 10 million monthly subscribers. The game is centered around the epic battle between the Horde and Alliance factions and many other races that get involved in a long and complex story line. Even though it has been released in 2004, Blizzard has always added incremental improvements to the graphics, especially with every new expansion. One key success of World of Warcraft is that it will run on a large number of slower systems while also delivering a decent graphics experience on high-end systems. We tested the game in DirectX 11 mode with details set to "Ultra".

 

 

Power Consumption

Cooling modern video cards is becoming more and more difficult, especially with users asking for a quiet cooling solution, which is why engineers are now paying much more attention to the power consumption of new video-card designs. An optimized fan-profile is also one of the few things board vendors can create to impress with reference designs where they are prohibited from making changes to the thermal solution or components on the card.

For this test, we only measured the power consumption of the graphics card via the PCI-Express power connector(s) and PCI-Express bus slot. A Keithley Integra 2700 digital multimeter with 6.5-digit resolution was used for all measurements. Again, the values here only reflect the card's power consumption as measured at its DC inputs, not that of the whole system.

We chose Crysis 2 as a standard test representing typical 3D gaming usage because it offers the following: very high power draw; high repeatability; is a current game that is supported on all cards because of its DirectX 9 roots; drivers are actively tested and optimized for it; supports all multi-GPU configurations; test runs in a relatively short time and renders a non-static scene with variable complexity.

Power consumption results of other cards on this page are measurements of the respective reference design.

Our results were based on the following tests:

• Idle: Windows 7 Aero sitting at the desktop (1280x1024, 32-bit) with all windows closed and drivers installed. Card left to warm up in idle mode until power draw was stable.
  
• Multi-monitor: Two monitors connected to the tested card, both using different display timings. Windows 7 Aero sitting at the desktop (1920x1080+1280x1024 32-bit) with all windows closed and drivers installed. Card left to warm up in idle mode until power draw was stable. When using two identical monitors with same timing and resolution, power consumption will be lower. Our test represents the usage model of many productivity users, who have one big screen and a small monitor on the side.
  
• Blu-ray Playback: Power DVD 9 Ultra was used at a resolution of 1920x1080 to play back the Batman: The Dark Knight disc with GPU acceleration turned on. Playback started around timecode 1:19, which has the highest data rates on the BD with up to 40 Mb/s. Playback was left running until power draw converged to a stable value.
  
• Average: Crysis 2 at 1920x1080, Extreme profile, representing a typical gaming power draw. Average of all readings (12 per second) while the benchmark was rendering (no title/loading screen).
  
• Peak: Crysis 2 at 1920x1080, Extreme profile, representing a typical gaming power draw. Highest single reading during the test.
  
• Maximum: Furmark Stability Test at 1280x1024, 0xAA. This results in a very high no-game power-consumption that can typically be reached only with stress-testing applications. The card was left running the stress test until power draw converged to a stable value.
  

I'm surprised to see significantly increased non-gaming power consumption numbers, when compared to the AMD reference R9 270X. Clocks and voltages are identical on both cards in all these states, so I suspect ASUS changed something in the voltage controller configuration that has this effect.

During gaming, power draw is a bit higher too, which is as expected, because the card is overclocked out of the box.

 

Fan Noise

In past years, gamers would accept everything for a little bit more performance. Nowadays, users are more aware of their graphics card's fan noise and power consumption.

In order to properly test the fan noise a card emits, we use the Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound-level meter (~$4,000). It has the measurement range and the accuracy we are looking for.


The tested graphics card was installed in a system that was completely cooled passively. That is, passive PSU, passive CPU cooler, and passive cooling on the motherboard and solid state drive. Noise results of other cards on this page are measurements of the respective reference design.

This setup allows us to eliminate secondary noise sources and test only the video card. To be more compliant with standards like DIN 45635 (we are not claiming to be fully DIN 45635 certified), the measurement was conducted at a distance of 100 cm and 160 cm off the floor. Ambient background noise in the room was well below 20 dBA for all measurements. Please note that the dBA scale is not linear but logarithmic. 40 dBA is not twice as loud as 20 dBA, as a 3 dBA increase results in double the sound pressure. The human hearing perception is a bit different, and it is generally accepted that a 10 dBA increase doubles the perceived sound level. 3D load noise levels were tested with a stressful game, not with Furmark.

Idle fan noise levels are fantastic, the card is barely audible, even if you put your ear right next to it. During gaming the fan ramps up quite a bit and makes the card quite noisy (for its performance class). Typical super high-end cards like GTX Titan and GTX 780 Ti have the same levels as this R9 270X tested today!

ASUS is advertising 20% cooler, which means they focused too much on low temperatures instead of providing a balanced mix between low noise and low temperatures. The card runs at 67°C under load, so there would have been plenty of headroom to do so.

 

 

Performance Summary

The graphs on this page show a combined performance summary of all tests and resolutions from previous pages. Each graph shows the tested card as 100% and every other card's performance as relative to it. An additional graph summarizes all tests in all resolutions to calculate the total relative performance of the review sample.



 

Performance per Watt

The following graphs show the efficiency of the cards in our test group. We used the relative performance scores and the typical gaming power consumption result.

These numbers are based on the performance summary with all games included.




 

 

Performance per Dollar

If you are looking for the best bang per buck, you will love this graph. We looked up the current USD price of each card on the popular online shop Newegg and used that value and all relative performance numbers to calculate the performance-per-dollar index.



 

Overclocking

The overclocking results listed in this section were achieved with the default fan and voltage settings as defined in the VGA BIOS. Please note that every single sample overclocks differently, which is why our results here can only serve as a guideline for what you can expect from your card. On NVIDIA cards with boost, the values discussed here are base clock. Boost will further increase clocks.



Maximum overclock of our sample is 1245 MHz GPU clock (11% overclocking) and 1555 MHz memory (11% overclock).

GPU overclocking potential is quite good, even with the ASUS card being overclocked out of the box already. Memory overclocks just so-so because of the Elpida memory chips on the card, which are known to not OC as well as chips from Hynix or Samsung.

Overclocked Performance

Using these clock frequencies, we ran a quick test of Battlefield 3 to evaluate the gains from overclocking.

 

 Actual 3D performance gained from overclocking is 9.8%. 

Temperatures

Temperatures are very low, it would have been better to allow slightly higher temperatures for less fan noise.

Clock Profiles

Modern graphics cards have several clock profiles that are selected to balance power draw and performance requirements.

The following table lists the clock settings for important performance scenarios and the GPU voltage we measured. We performed the measurement on the pins of a coil or a capacitor near the GPU voltage regulator. 

 

Value and Conclusion

	The ASUS R9 270X DC II TOP is currently available online for $210.
	Overclocked out of the box Very quiet in idle Good overclocking potential Low temperatures Native, full-size HDMI & DisplayPort
	Noisy during gaming Memory not overclocked No support for AMD TrueAudio
8.9	The ASUS R9 270X DC II TOP is a solid addition to the company's graphics card lineup. It comes overclocked out of the box, which gives it a 2% performance advantage over the AMD reference design, not really much, but better than nothing. This puts the card 1% faster than HD 7950, 3% slower than GTX 660 Ti. The more expensive GTX 760 ends up 9% faster. It would be nice if ASUS has included a memory overclock, too, which would help with performance. While the memory chips are not amazing overclockers, they could certainly handle a few MHz extra. We've seen ASUS' Direct CU thermal solution on many cards before and it does a good job at keeping the card cool. Temperatures were excellent in both idle and load. Idle fan noise was outstanding too, making the card almost inaudible, which will be useful for productivity system or media playback. During load on the other hand, the card ended up a bit noisier than what it could be. The main reason is that ASUS has decided to focus on temperatures instead of providing a balance between noise and temperatures. During gaming we see noise levels similar to GTX Titan and GTX 780 Ti; cards that are much faster than a R9 270X. ASUS had boldly put "20% cooler" on their package, but also "3X" quieter .. maybe they measured that in idle. With a price of $210, the card is just $10 more expensive than the cheapest R9 270X on the market. We've recently reviewed a R9 270X from HIS which comes overclocked out of the box, with a higher overclock, without any price increase. So if you absolutely have to save as much money as possible, then that could be an option. Personally just the reduced idle noise justifies the $10 for me.

 

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