Review: Sapphire Radeon R9 285 Dual-X OC (28nm Tonga)

by Tarinder Sandhu on 2 September 2014, 13:00

Tags: Sapphire, AMD (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qacijr

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Test Methodology

Sapphire R9 285 Dual-X OC Specification


GPU Comparisons

Graphics Card Peak Core Clock
(MHz)
Stream
Processors
Memory Clock
(MHz)
Memory Bus
(bits)
Graphics Driver
Sapphire Radeon R9 285 Dual-X OC 2GB 965 1,792 5,600 256 Catalyst 14.8 beta
XFX Radeon R9 280 DD 3GB 933 1,792 5,000 384 Catalyst 14.8 beta
Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 2GB 1,033 1,152 6,000 256 GeForce 340.52

HEXUS Graphics Test Bench

Hardware Components HEXUS Review Product Page
Processor Intel Core i7-4770K (3.50GHz, 8MB cache, quad-core) June 2013 Intel.com
CPU Cooler Corsair Hydro Series H75 March 2014 Corsair.com
Motherboard Asus Z97-A May 2014 Asus.com
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro (2x8GB) DDR3 @ 1,866MHz - Corsair.com
Power Supply Corsair AX760i - Corsair.com
Storage Device Crucial M500 240GB SSD July 2013 Crucial.com
Chassis Corsair Graphite Series 600T October 2010 Corsair.com
Monitor Philips Brilliance 288P6LJEB/00 (3,840x2,160) - Philips.co.uk
Operating system Windows 8.1 (64-bit) October 2012 Microsoft.com

HEXUS High-End Benchmark Suite

GPU Benchmarks Mode and Resolutions Quality Settings
3DMark DX11 at 1,920x1,080 and 2,560x1,440 Fire Strike and Fire Strike Extreme
Batman: Arkham Origins DX11 at 1,920x1,080 and 3,840x2,160 Ultra/Enhanced Preset
BioShock Infinite DX11 at 1,920x1,080 Ultra Preset
Crysis 3 DX11 at 1,920x1,080 0xMSAA, High Preset
Far Cry 3 DX11 at 1,920x1,080 2xMSAA, Ultra Preset
GRID 2 DX11 at 1,920x1,080 and 3,840x2,160 4xMSAA, Ultra Preset
Just Cause 2 DX10 at 1,920x1,080 8xMSAA, High Preset
Total War: Rome II DX11 at 1,920x1,080 and 3,840x2,160 Ultra Preset
General Benchmarks Description
Power Consumption To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record mains power draw both when idle and while playing Far Cry 3
Temperature To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record GPU core temperature both when idle and while playing Far Cry 3
Noise A PCE-318 meter is used to record noise levels when idle and while playing Far Cry 3

Test Notes

Despite our best protestations, AMD sent us a slightly overclocked Sapphire Radeon R9 285 GPU, running up to 47MHz higher on the core and 100MHz on the memory. We wanted clean numbers on the latest drivers - beta or otherwise - so re-ran a stock-clocked Radeon R9 280 and GeForce GTX 760 at a 1080p resolution with image settings close to maximum.

We also tested a trio of games at 4K, albeit by dropping the AA quotient to 0x, to see if these £150-£175 could handle the ultra-high resolution at playable framerates.