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AMD Radeon R9 270 Review: Replacing The Radeon HD 7800s
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1. The Radeon R9 270: New, Or Renewed?

Particularly after the excitement of Radeon R9 290X, 290, and GeForce GTX 780 Ti, it's hard to get excited about re-branded products from previous-gen GPUs. Yet, from time to time, both AMD and Nvidia have been guilty of the recycling old processors and giving them new names. The worst cases of this are when a card with the same exact specifications, shader count, clock rates, and all, gets repackaged, adding confusion to the marketplace. Not everyone jumps online to read graphics card reviews, leaving a lot of people vulnerable to an "upgrade" they didn't need.

Re-branding is a little easier to accept if it's accompanied by performance increases along the price band. Nvidia did this with its GeForce GTX 770, upping speed and dropping cost. AMD's Radeon R9 280X similarly improved performance versus the Radeon HD 7970 and made Tahiti more affordable at the same time.

Today, AMD introduces another re-branded graphics card: the Radeon R9 270. Apparently, the company felt it wasn't enough to rename the product itself; it also started using Curacao to refer to the GPU we know as Pitcairn. We're not sure why. It's still calling the R9 280X's processor Tahiti, after all. But here's Curacao/Pitcairn again, in all of its glory:

More than a year and a half ago we introduced you to this GPU's specifications in AMD Radeon HD 7870 And 7850 Review: Pitcairn Gets Benchmarked:

"Pitcairn hosts 20 compute units, each with four vector units made up of 16 stream processors and a single texture unit. In an uncut GPU, those numbers multiply out to 1280 total shaders and 80 texture units. AMD shears off four compute units from Pitcairn to create the Radeon HD 7850, resulting in 1024 shaders and 64 texture units.

The GPU’s back-end is made up of eight render partitions, each with four full-color ROPs, totaling 32 ROPs. Four 64-bit memory controllers yield an aggregate 256-bit memory bus."

So if the Radeon R9 270X replaced the Radeon HD 7870, then we should expect its R9 270 to displace the cut-down Radeon HD 7850, right? But the comparison gets interesting when we look at the specs, clock rates, and prices of AMD's current line-up.


Radeon HD 7850Radeon HD 7870Radeon R9 270
Radeon R9 270X
Shader Cores
1024
1280
12801280
Texture Units
64808080
Color ROPs
32
323232
Fabrication process
28 nm
28 nm28 nm28 nm
Core (Shader) Clock
860 MHz
1000 MHz
925 MHz
1050 MHz
Memory Clock
1200 MHz GDDR5
1200 MHz GDDR51400 MHz GDDR51400 MHz GDDR5
Memory Bus
256-bit
256-bit256-bit256-bit
Memory Bandwidth
153.6 GB/s
153.6 GB/s179.2 GB/s179.2 GB/s
Idle/Max Thermal
Design Power
130 W
175 W
150 W
180 W
Power Connectors:
1 x 6-pin
2 x 6-pin1 x 6-pin2 x 6-pin
Price
$140-$220
(Newegg)
$170-$230
(Newegg)
$180
(MSRP)
$200-$220
(Newegg)

I was surprised to find that the Radeon R9 270 is not an overclocked Radeon HD 7850, as I expected. Rather, it's essentially a Radeon HD 7870 with a 75 MHz-slower core, 200 MHz-faster GDDR5 memory, a 25 W-lower TDP, and a $180 price tag.

First, let's consider those clock rates. The slower core frequency and faster RAM seems designed to deliver performance on par with the old Radeon HD 7870. This doesn't really make sense, though. Why down-clock Pitcairn and spend more on pricier GDDR5? The only hypothesis I have is that AMD wanted the 7870's performance, while ducking under the limit of one six-pin auxiliary power connector. As you can see, the Radeon R9 270 has a 150 W TDP compared to the Radeon HD 7870's 175 W ceiling. Both the Radeon R9 270X and HD 7870 require two of those connectors.

As for the $180 price tag, that's $20 cheaper than the recently-released Radeon R9 270X, a card with the same 1400 MHz memory clock, but a 125 MHz-higher core frequency (1050 MHz). Assuming boards really sell for $180 at launch, the Radeon R9 270 will end up $10 below the street price of a GeForce GTX 660, its main competitor from Nvidia. That also pushes the 270 below the average price of Radeon HD 7870, an offering we've seen heavily discounted over the past few months. This was only temporary as retailers sought to clear out inventory. We already know from AMD that the Radeon HD 7870 and 7850 are expected to disappear soon.

It's also worth noting that leveraging the Pitcairn/Curacao processor means the Radeon R9 270 and 270X do not support AMD's new TrueAudio feature. You'd need a Radeon R7 260 or Radeon R9 290 series card for that. AMD's Mantle API is supported, as it is with all GCN-based parts, but it remains to be seen how successful that will be.

Be warned that the new Radeon R9 series (270, 270X, 280X, 290, and 290X) are not part of AMD's Never Settle bundle. The good news is that AMD teamed up with DICE to provide a copy of Battlefield 4 for anyone buying one of those cards starting today. Picking up a Radeon R7 260X won't get you Battlefield 4, but you will get to choose two game titles from AMD's Silver tier of the company's Never Settle bundle program.

Update: It was recently brought to our attention that AMD represented its Battlefield 4 promotion inaccurately; it relies on both the participating retailer and add-in board partners to choose the models that include a game voucher. In addition, there is a limit of 1000 of these vouchers available. A Newegg search for "Radeon Battlefield 4" results in five hits (one Radeon R9 290 and four R9 290Xs).

So the big question now is: how does the Radeon R9 270 perform compared to AMD's Radeon HD 7870? And is the newer board a good value compared to the GeForce GTX 660? We have a lot of benchmarks on the way to help answer that question. First, let's have a look at our test sample.

Sapphire's Dual-X R9 270

Sapphire's Dual-X R9 270 features a mild factory overclock, its core operating at 945 MHz (up from 925 MHz) and GDDR5 memory at the reference 1400 MHz frequency. Our Radeon R9 270 benchmarks are run at AMD's reference clock rates, though.

The Dual-X card sports Sapphire's custom cooling solution, featuring dual axial fans.

Sapphire's Radeon R9 270 has two dual-link DVI connectors, HDMI, and DisplayPort outputs. Because this board's power ceiling is 150 W, it only has one six-pin auxiliary power input. AMD dictates that the R9 270 only feature one CrossFire connector, limiting you to dual-card configurations.

2. Test Setup And Benchmarks

We've almost completely eliminated mechanical storage in the lab, and instead lean on solid-state drives to alleviate I/O-related bottlenecks. Samsung sent all of our offices 256 GB 840 Pros, so we standardize on these exceptional SSDs.

Naturally, discrete graphics cards require a substantial amount of stable power, so XFX sent along its PRO850W 80 PLUS Bronze-certified power supply. This modular PSU employs a single +12 V rail rated for 70 A. XFX claims that this unit provides 850 W of continuous power (not peak) at 50 degrees Celsius (notably higher than the inside of most enclosures).

The Radeon R9 270 is being tested against three other Pitcairn/Curacao boards: the Radeon HD 7850, Radeon HD 7870, and Radeon R9 270X. We're also including a Bonaire-based Radeon R7 260X to gauge the spread betwen the 270 and the next model down (once the 7850 disappears, that is). Nvidia's portfolio is represented by the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost and GeForce GTX 660.


Test System
CPU
Intel Core i5-2550K (Sandy Bridge), Overclocked to 4.2 GHz @ 1.3 V
Motherboard
Asus P8Z77-V LX
LGA 1155, Chipset: Intel Z77M
Networking
On-Board Gigabit LAN controller
Memory
Corsair Performance Memory, 4 x 4 GB, 1866 MT/s, CL 9-9-9-24-1T
Graphics
Reference Radeon HD 7850 1GB
860 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1200 MHz (4800 MT/s)

Reference Radeon HD 7870
1000 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1200 MHz (4800 MT/s)

Sapphire Dual-X R9 270
945 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1400 MHz (5300 MT/s)
*GPU downclocked to reference 925 MHz specification for benchmarking*

Reference Radeon R9 270X
1050 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1400 MHz (5300 MT/s)

Reference Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost
980/1033 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1502 MHz (6008 MT/s)

Reference Nvidia GeForce GTX 660

980/1033 MHz GPU, 2 GB GDDR5 at 1502 MHz (6008 MT/s)
Hard Drive
Samsung 840 Pro, 256 GB SSD, SATA 6Gb/s
Power
XFX PRO850W, ATX12V, EPS12V
Software and Drivers
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 8 Pro x64
DirectX
DirectX 11
Graphics Drivers
AMD Catalyst 13.11 Beta 9.2, Nvidia GeForce 331.65 WHQL
Benchmark Configuration
3D Games
Metro: Last Light
Version 1.0.0.0, DirectX 10, Built-in Benchmark
Call Of Duty: Ghosts
Version 1.6.89.06, Version 1.5.26.05, 25-Sec. Fraps
Tomb Raider
Version 1.04, Custom THG Benchmark, 60-Sec. Fraps
Battlefield 4
Version 1.2, Direct X 11, Built-in Benchmark, 60-Sec. Fraps
BioShock Infinite
Version 1.0.1441711, Built-in Benchmark, Fraps
Company Of Heroes 2
Version 3.0.0.9804, Built-in Benchmark, Fraps
3. Results: Call Of Duty: Ghosts

Let's begin with a brand new game, Call of Duty: Ghosts. Our full performance analysis of this title is coming soon, but here is a preview of what the sub-$200 graphics card market offers in this highly-anticipated title at 1920x1080 with high-quality details applied:

The Radeon R9 270 performs just like the Radeon HD 7870, exactly as we expected it to. It's slightly faster than the GeForce GTX 660, and significantly faster than the Radeon HD 7850 and GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost, which appear a lot alike in this title.

The Curacao/Pitcairn-based GPUs boast the lowest frame time variance in our field of contenders, though this game generates more spikes than we want to see. It's still new, so lets see how subsequent driver updates change this moving forward.

4. Results: Battlefield 4

Battlefield 4 is only a couple of weeks older than the new Call of Duty, but its Frostbite 3 engine is unquestionably more advanced. How does the Radeon R9 270 fare in this next-gen blockbuster?

Unsurprisingly, the Radeon R9 270 is on par with the HD 7870. Nvidia's GeForce GTX 660 is nipping at its heels though, just as the Radeon HD 7850 comes close to the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost.

Observed frame time variance is lower in Battlefield 4 than Call Of Duty: Ghosts, but the Radeon cards still suffer from a few more latency peaks than the competition.

5. Results: Metro: Last Light

The Metro series is known for generating taxing graphics loads at its most demanding settings. We dialed Last Light back a bit to facilitate more playable frame rates in the sub-$200 graphics card tier.

We probably could have played it safe and stepped the eye candy back another notch, since our entire collection of cards touches 30 FPS or less in the most demanding passages. Nevertheless, the finishing order is similar to what we already saw in Call of Duty and Battlefield 4.

In general, Metro: Last Light is good for low average frame time variance with occasional big spikes. All of the tested cards suffer equally from this phenomenon.

6. Results: BioShock Infinite

BioShock Infinite represents the newest iteration of Epic's Unreal engine. It is known to be less taxing of graphics hardware.

For the first time, we see AMD's Radeon R9 270 score a win against the older HD 7870. This appears to be a comparison where memory bandwidth is more important than shader performance.

Nvidia's GeForce GTX 660 does exceptionally well in this game, beating out the Radeon R9 270X.

The engine appears well-optimized when it comes to frame time variance. There's not much to see (or worry about, which is nice).

7. Results: Tomb Raider

This game sets itself apart from its predecessors with a new take on Lara Croft, including impressive hair simulation via TressFX.

As usual, the Radeon HD 7870 stays close to the new R9 270. Nvidia's cards struggle; the GeForce GTX 660 barely keeps ahead of the Radeon HD 7850, while GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost trails the pack.

The frame time variance is exceptionally low in this game, aside from a solitary 14-millisecond peak suffered by the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost in our 300-frame sample.

8. Results: Company Of Heroes 2

Company of Heroes 2 is the sequel to Relic's popular World War II RTS. We've seen it hammer CPUs and GPUs alike, so let's see how these mid-range boards get along.

The Radeon cards deliver expected results, but Nvidia's GeForce boards take a beating. It's possible that the company's driver team has work to do still.

Charting frame time variance demonstrates strange behavior from every card. We see five to 10 millisecond peaks at regular intervals. Unsure of what these strange numbers would mean to our average performance calculations, we're excluding Company of Heroes from our summary on the last page.

9. Power And Temperature Benchmarks

Our German team received a factory-overclocked card from Asus, so while our reference-clocked card reflects baseline performance, Igor's measurements are going to look a little bit higher.

There's a lot to like about AMD's single-monitor idle power result. However, AMD's cards are penalized with higher power readings when you plug in multiple screens.


The GeForce cards excel when it comes to low-power Blu-ray playback, but AMD claws back some ground in our gaming and compute-based power tests.

Specifically, the new Radeon H9 270 does well in these disciplines, particularly when remember that the benchmarks are taken from a factory-overclocked board.

This tells us nothing about AMD's reference Radeon R9 270 cooler, but Asus' Direct CU II does a great job of keeping the GPU at low temperatures during a prolonged gaming run. It never exceeds 70 degrees Celsius under load.

10. AMD Radeon R9 270: A Worthy Radeon HD 7870 Replacement

On average, how does AMD's Radeon R9 270 perform compared to the previous-generation Radeon HD 7800s? How about when we put it up against the Radeon R7 260X, R9 270X, and the GeForce cards it competes against?

The Radeon R9 270 performs so much like the Radeon HD 7870 that even the most seasoned gamer wouldn't be able to tell them apart. With that said, what was the point of creating a new model?

Most notably, the Radeon R9 270 sheds one six-pin auxiliary power connector in its transformation from Radeon HD 7870, making it the fastest reference board we've ever tested that only requires one six-pin input. It just slightly bests the GeForce GTX 660 to earn that title. In a different suite of benchmarks, this competition could have gone the other way; it was that close.

But pair the R9 270's performance with a $180 price tag, and you're looking at $10 less than the lowest-priced GeForce GTX 660. AMD has a card worth buying, so long as you're stepping up from the right level of performance. It's true that the Radeon HD 7870 was recently priced around this same level, so the value isn't particularly stunning. But those cards were discounted to make room for these newly rebranded models, and the 7800s are probably going to disappear shortly.

The Radeon R9 270 ensures that the HD 7870 won't be missed. However, we can't help but worry about the imminent discontinuation of the Radeon HD 7850. While the Radeon R7 260X does an admirable job given its modest specifications, it's simply unable to compete against Nvidia's GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost (especially when you consider their similar $140 price points). AMD's new naming scheme doesn't leave any obvious room between the R7 260X and R9 270, but hopefully the company comes up with something to fill the hole it's creating. Our suggestion would be to drop the R9 270's price sooner than later.

In the end, AMD's Radeon R9 270 doesn't break any value barriers like the R9 280X did. But it remains a solid value proposition with less strenuous power supply requirements than before. Barring a significant price drop on Nvidia's GeForce GTX 660, we might expect the Radeon R9 270 to secure a spot in our monthly Best Gaming Graphics Cards for the Money guide.